Xdebug Update: August 2025
In this monthly update I explain what happened with Xdebug development.
GitHub and Pro/Business supporters will get it earlier, around the first of each month.
In the last month, I spend around 27 hours on Xdebug, with 29 hours funded.
Xdebug 3.4
I spend a fair amount of time trying to triage bug #2359 where Xdebug is interfering with Lazy Objects, which were introduced in PHP 8.4. However, there is no small reproducible case, and I have not managed to reproduce this myself at all.
However, I did manage to get to the bottom of bug #2328. This ended up being reference counting in PHP and resources (such as open file pointers) not being quite compatible. Instead of holding on to these resources when I keep the stack traces when an Exception occurs, I now instead ignore these.
These resource types are being phased out in PHP, as they are the source of many other issues as well. But, file and stream resources have not been ported yet.
I also fixed a bug where sometimes internal PHP objects (such as DateTimeInterval) would cause a crash when debugging.
I will make a release in early September to get these fixes out.
PHP 8.5
Most of the time this month I spent on making Xdebug PHP 8.5 ready.
Last month I wrote about a patch for PHP that I created to introduce intermediate steps between pipe stages. With this, I discovered a parser issue with PHP's implementation of pipes, and especially when closures were used. Due to the precedence order, something went awry.
This has now been addressed in PHP, and my patch to introduce intermediate steps has also been merged after adjusting it slightly. I have also merged the Xdebug side of this feature into to the master branch.
The rest of the PHP 8.5 work was mostly due to Opcache now always being enabled. This caused some churn in my test cases and CI workflows, where I would load opcache.so conditionally. With PHP 8.5 this library no longer exists as Opcache is now built-in.
Native Path Mapping
I continued investigating how to implement "skip" for native path mapping, and am planning to get this implemented in early September. It is a fair amount of work, as I need to adjust my data structures and parser rules.
Xdebug Videos
I have created no new videos in the last months.
All Xdebug videos can be watched on my channel.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to reach out to me on Mastodon or via email.
Business Supporter Scheme and Funding
On GitHub sponsors, I am currently 42% towards my $2,500 per month goal, which is set to allow continued maintenance of Xdebug.
If you are leading a team or company, then it is also possible to support Xdebug through a subscription.
In the last month, no new business supporters signed up.
Besides business support, I also maintain a Patreon page, a profile on GitHub sponsors, as well as an OpenCollective organisation.
If you want to contribute to specific projects, you can find those on the Projects page.
Xdebug Cloud
Xdebug Cloud is the Proxy As A Service platform to allow for debugging in more scenarios, where it is hard, or impossible, to have Xdebug make a connection to the IDE. It is continuing to operate as Beta release.
Packages start at £49/month, and I have recently introduced a package for larger companies. This has a larger initial set of tokens, and discounted extra tokens.
If you want to be kept up to date with Xdebug Cloud, please sign up to the mailing list, which I will use to send out an update not more than once a month.
Comments
@blog Thanks Derick. (I see Omarchy now installs xdebug along with PHP)
Life Line
Updated a restaurant
I walked 9.6km in 2h5m58s
I walked 7.2km in 1h10m18s
Updated a pet_grooming shop; Deleted a dry_cleaning shop; Confirmed 2 variety_store shops, a fitness_centre, and a convenience shop
I walked 4.1km in 47m50s
I walked 1.2km in 9m08s
Map new layout of Meanwhile Gardens
I walked 10.4km in 1h45m58s
This is probably the shortest chapter I've ever read in any book. And it'll likely stay like that.
Created a bench
Created 10 benches, 3 climbingframes, and 3 other objects; Updated a bicycle_parking and a bench; Deleted a bench
I walked 8.5km in 1h34m09s
Whoop! PHP London is meeting again next week: https://meetu.ps/e/PXrS6/2XF6m/i
Created a massage shop; Confirmed an estate_agent office, a pet_grooming shop, and 2 other objects
I walked 9.9km in 1h50m43s
Add Canteen building back in, with additional tags
Twyford Station footpahts and road layout
Created 2 crossings and an insect_hotel
Created a bicycle_parking; Updated a bench
Updated a cafe
I walked 6.7km in 1h5m45s
Updated a bench; Deleted a bench
Created 5 gates, a crossing, and 3 other objects
Created a fast_food and a recycling; Updated 2 crossings and a bus_stop


Shortlink
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