PHP ZendDebugger and WAMP

So I wanted to write about my woes with PHP ZendDebugger and the latest WAMP install. Bottom line: I can’t get it to work with PHP 5.3 yet. I believe this is an incompatibility in the debugger DLLs that I have been able to find for 5.3 – looks like the linkers used are incompatible with what WAMP is using.

So, here are my findings (in no particular order):

• PHP 5.3 requires zend_extension whereas 5.2 and prior require zend_extension_ts, so since 5.3 doesn’t work for me yet, I used zend_extension_ts
• You do not need a separate extension configured for ZendDebugger.dll, contrary to what some posts have you believe…
• I was able to use the PHP 5.2.11 from the WAMP distribution (click the “Get more…” menu item in WAMP’s task icon and download and install PHP 5.2.11)
• WAMP’s php.ini seems to be copied to the Apache/bin directory – haven’t figured out why that is yet… So, make sure you’re editing the correct one!
• I was able to get it to work with these lines added to the end of my php.ini file:

[ZendDebug]
zend_extension_ts=C:\wamp\bin\php\php5.2.11\ext\ZendDebugger-5.2.15RC1-cygwin_nt-i386\5_2_x_comp\ZendDebugger.dll
zend_debugger.allow_hosts=127.0.0.1,192.2.3.44
zend_debugger.expose_remotely=always

• Note the addition of the second host IP there – that’s the actual IP address I was using (well, not really, but you get the point… ;] ) – without that the Eclipse plugin wouldn’t work
• The ZendDebugger-5.2.15-cygwin_nt-i386.zip using the 5_2_x_comp ZendDebugger.dll (not the 5_2_x_nts_comp!) from here worked for me – YMMV.
• Otherwise I followed the instructions here

Hope that helps some of you!