Get Xdebug Working With Docker and PHP 8.4 in One Minute

Setting up Xdebug with Docker can be done quickly and easily, and this post demonstrates how to do it with Laravel, PHP 8.4, and Xdebug v3.4.0. The setup requires a Dockerfile that installs Xdebug, a compose.yaml file to start the container, and a supported editor or IDE as an Xdebug client. The post uses Apache to simplify the server setup, but the Dockerfile code is identical for configuring Xdebug in a PHP-FPM image. The demo project is set up using Laravel, and the necessary folders and files are created. The Dockerfile is then configured to install Xdebug and set up the development environment. The xdebug.ini file is configured to define the client host and start Xdebug with every request. The compose.yaml file is set up to run the application with Docker, and the image is built and started using Docker Compose. Finally, the IDE (in this case, PhpStorm) is configured to connect to Xdebug, and a breakpoint is set to test the connection. With these steps, Xdebug is ready to use with the project.