Recently I started working on MacBook, and I needed to set up a local debugging environment? Since there aren’t many tutorials on how to do it, I’ve encountered some problems on how to get the setup up and running. By combining a few blogs and spending a few hours on several forums, I came up with this text.

Let's get started by doing some code pieces of stuff-

Getting started-
I assume you already have installed PHP.

1. Open the terminal in your mac (press cmd + space then type terminal and click it to open)
2. Now : cd /usr/local/etc/php
3. Clone the xdebug repository: git clone git://github.com/xdebug/xdebug.git
4. Navigate to the repository: cd xdebug
5. Type command: phpize
6. For configuration Setup type: ./configure --enable-xdebug
7. Now, build an executable program from your source code by running the command:- sudo make && sudo make install

The package is now installed and located at :
/usr/local/etc/php/xdebug/modules/xdebug.so

The package is now ready to use but we need to do a few more configurations in the php.ini file but first check your path of the file named xdebug.so ( it will be at your zend_Extension path )

cd /usr/local/lib/php/pecl

Here you can see a few folders, find the folder which contains the xdebug.so file.
In my case xdebug.so file path is:
/usr/local/lib/php/pecl/20190902/xdebug.so

Here, I am using php 7.4, you can use your respective php version’s php.ini file.

• cd /usr/local/etc/php/7.4
• Open php.ini file: open -a TextEdit php.ini
• Add these line at the end of the file:-
  zend_extension = /usr/local/lib/php/pecl/20190902/xdebug.so
  xdebug.mode = debug
  xdebug.start_with_request = yes
  xdebug.client_port = 9000

Now, save and close the text editor and type the command- php -i | grep php.ini
You should see the following output-

Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /usr/local/etc/php/7.4
Loaded Configuration File => /usr/local/etc/php/7.4/php.ini

The Xdebug has been configured.
Now open your VS Code and install xdebug extension ( This extension is a debug adapter between VS Code and xDebug ). and start debugging your code.

I hope, you have learned how to enable Xdebug and configure it in VSCode for Mac. You can also integrate it in Eclipse, PHPstorm, and other IDEs.
If there is anything you want to know more about, do post your comments and suggestions in the comments section below.