What to do to dubug/execute an existing PHP project

I am beginner to PHP. I want to debug/execute an existing PHP project. I have already installed Eclipse as IDE and what else should be installed in my system (OS is W开发者_C百科indows xp). And what and all settings should do in that...??

I request you to invest few seconds for this "Kid of PHP".......

I would recommend installing xampp, it allows you to run a website on your local machine.

php and a web server would come in handy ;-)

http://windows.php.net/download/
http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi

Firephp is a Firefox extension. It works as a module of Firebug. After you install it and add the php library to your code your messages will appear inside the browser. A real quick and clear way to debug in php.

Since you said you are a beginner, it is better NOT to go after advanced debuggers like xDebug at the moment.

print_r(); die;

is the best debugging tool for you now. Also if you want to nicely format the output of print_r() when arrays or objects are shown, do this:-

echo '<pre>', print_r($array), '</pre>';

And Eclipse! If you are a beginner (or pro), definitely go for NetBeans. NetBeans comes with built-in support for xDebug and zend debugger and a lot other cool stuff you can use when you learn more. If you are going with Eclipse, you will need to install Eclipse extensions like PDT for making Eclipse support PHP.

Of course you will need a web server with PHP support. If you already don't have that, install xampp as somebody mentioned earlier. That's the easy way to get the web server running quickly.

NetBeans is just great, everything works out of the box. Very little to configure. (I'm a former Eclipse user)