How to run or debug php on Visual Studio Code (VSCode)

Solution 1:

Debugging PHP with VSCode using the vscode-php-debug extension

VSCode can now support debugging PHP projects through the marketplace extension vscode-php-debug.

This extension uses XDebug in the background, and allows you to use breakpoints, watches, stack traces and the like:

Installation is straightforward from within VSCode: Summon the command line with F1 and then type ext install php-debug

Solution 2:

As far as I read about it today, you can't debug anything else than node.js, JavaScript and TypeScript at the moment, but they said they want to add new languages which you can debug. The editor is still in development. Nevertheless, I don't think there will be a php debugger in the future since php is serverside, so you can't debug it on your client alone.

If you want to debug php, I can recommend xDebug.

Updated:

Now, it is possible to debug with VS code. You need to install XDebug and php-debug extension for VScode.

Solution 3:

There is now a handy guide for configuring PHP debugging in Visual Studio Code at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nicktrog/archive/2016/02/11/configuring-visual-studio-code-for-php-development.aspx

From the link, the steps are:

1. Download and install Visual Studio Code
2. Configure PHP linting in user settings
3. Download and install the PHP Debug extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace
4. Configure the PHP Debug extension for XDebug

Note there are specific details in the linked article, including the PHP values for your VS Code user config, and so on.