Xdebug Update: February 2020
Another month, another monthly update where I explain what happened with Xdebug development in this past month. It will be published on the first Tuesday after the 5th of each month. Patreon supporters will get it earlier, on the first of each month. You can become a patron here to support my work on Xdebug. If you are leading a team or company, then it is also possible to support Xdebug through a subscription.
In February, I worked on Xdebug for just over 75 hours, on the following things:
PHP 8 Compatibility
Although PHP 8 is no where near being released, I am keeping Xdebug's master branch in line with PHP's master branch. A few features have been added to PHP 8 that ended up breaking some code and tests, and some additions to the PHP DOM extension required work on upgrading test cases. When PHP 8 comes out, I am intending to have Xdebug ready to go with it. Hopefully, that will be Xdebug 3.0.
dbgpClient and dbgpProxy
I have now finished work on early-release versions of a DBGp Client (dbgpClient) and DBGp Proxy (dbgpProxy). These tools are written in Go, and binaries can be downloaded from the download page. Source code is not yet available, but I am intending to open that at some point in the near future.
For Xdebug Cloud I can no longer have the debugging protocol going over the network unencrypted. I am therefore working at including SSL support in Xdebug, as well as in the dbgpClient and dbgpProxy tools. The tools already have support as it was easy to add that in Go, but Xdebug does not yet. I've done research and selected BearSSL to provide this.
Asynchronous Debugging Support
Robert Lu has been working on asynchronous support in Xdebug's debugging protocol for a while, the #1016: Support for pause-execution issue. After extensive testing, review, and reworking of the patch by Robert and I, this patch finally landed in Xdebug. The asynchronous support allows you to pause scripts while they are running without a breakpoint to have been hit. This feature needs support in a debugging client, which actively needs to opt into this behaviour. The new dbgpClient from the previous section supports this.
I will be working with purveyors of IDE to also include "pause-exection" in their feature set.
Business Supporter Scheme and Funding
In February, a few new supporters signed up. They are:
Supermetrics, Private Packagist, and CHECK24.
Thanks!
If you, or your company, would also like to support Xdebug, head over to the support page!
Besides business support, I also maintain a Patreon page and a profile on GitHub sponsors.
Podcast
The PHP Internals News continues its second season. In this weekly podcast, I discuss in 15-30 minutes, proposed new features to the PHP language with fellow PHP internals developers. It is available on Spotify and iTunes, and through an RSS Feed. In the first episode I spoke with Nikita Popov about Preloading and WeakMaps.
Life Line
Add the new Queen Elizabeth II garden.
Updated a bench and a crossing; Deleted 2 kerbs
Created 3 gates and a waste_basket
Created 6 benches
Created a bench; Updated 4 benches
Created 2 benches and a bicycle_parking; Updated a telephone and a waste_basket
Updated 2 restaurants and an address; Confirmed a restaurant and a fitness_centre
Updated a restaurant
Merged pull request #1077
PHP 8.6: Add new PHP version to Linux jobs for GitHub Actions
PHP 8.6: Switch INI_STR macros to zend_ini_string_literal
I walked 7.1km in 1h28m55s
Added the new Carlton Dene building (nearing completion)
Updated a fast_food
Created a bakery shop; Updated a cafe
Created a bicycle_parking; Updated 2 waste_baskets, 2 bicycle_parkings, and 2 humps
I walked 4.0km in 48m56s
I walked 1.1km in 10m42s
Created a bench and a waste_basket; Updated a bus_stop
Created 4 house buildings, an entrance, and an alternative; Updated a restaurant and a cafe; Deleted a waste_basket
I walked 7.1km in 1h30m54s
Updated a pub
I walked 7.1km in 1h31m14s
Fix gates
Created 2 gates

Shortlink
This article has a short URL available: https://drck.me/xdebug-20feb-fio