- Configure local PHP interpreters
- Switch between configured PHP interpreters on the fly
- CLI Interpreters
- Left-hand pane
- Right-hand pane
- Remote interpreter accessible through SSH
- Remote interpreter on a Vagrant instance
- Remote interpreter in a Docker container
- Remote interpreter running in a multi-container Docker Compose application
- Remote interpreter running through Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
- General area
- Advanced area
- Configuration options dialog
Configure local PHP interpreters
A local PHP interpreter is a PHP engine installed on your computer opposite to a remote PHP interpreter that can be installed on a remote host or in a virtual environment set up in a Vagrant instance , see Configure remote PHP interpreters.
Before you begin, install a PHP engine either as part of an AMP package or separately.
- Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select PHP .
- On the PHP page that opens, click next to the CLI Interpreter list.
- In the CLI Interpreters dialog that opens, click in the left-hand pane, then choose Local from the popup menu. If you already have a local interpreter configured in PhpStorm, it is also shown from the menu and the menu item changes to Other Local .
- In the right-hand pane of the dialog, specify the PHP interpreter’s settings.
- In the Name field, type the identifier to distinguish the interpreter from others, for example, php_installation_ .
- Specify the PHP engine installation directory in the PHP executable field. Type the path manually or click and select the relevant folder in the dialog that opens. PhpStorm displays the version of the PHP engine detected in the specified folder and the debugger associated with this PHP engine in the php.ini file.
-dxdebug.mode=debug -dxdebug.client_host=127.0.0.1 -dxdebug.client_port=9003 -dxdebug.start_upon_error=default For example, if you specify the -dxdebug.start_upon_error=yes directive it will override the default -dxdebug.start_upon_error=default directive and thus switch Xdebug to the Just-In-Time (JIT) mode, see Debug in the Just-In-Time mode for details.
-dxdebug.remote_enable=1 -dxdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1 -dxdebug.remote_port=9000 -dxdebug.remote_mode=req For example, if you specify the -dxdebug.remote_mode=jit directive it will override the default -dxdebug.remote_mode=req directive and thus switch Xdebug to the Just-In-Time (JIT) mode, see Debug in the Just-In-Time mode for details.
- To add a new entry, click . In the new line, that is added to the list, specify the name of the new entry and its value in the Name and Value fields respectively. You can add as many entries as you need, just keep in mind that they will be transformed into a command line with its length limited to 256 characters.
- To delete an entry, select it in the list and click .
- To change the order of entries, click or .
Upon clicking OK , you return to the CLI Interpreters dialog, where the entries are transformed into a command line.
Switch between configured PHP interpreters on the fly
- Press Ctrl+Shift+A and start typing Change PHP interpreter . In the suggestions list, select the Change PHP interpreter action. If necessary, you can assign a keyboard shortcut for this action either directly in the suggestions list by pressing Alt+Enter , or at a later point as described in Keyboard shortcuts.
- In the popup menu that opens, select one of the configured local or remote PHP interpreters.
The selected interpreter will be set as the default project interpreter on the PHP page of the Settings dialog ( Ctrl+Alt+S ). This will also affect configurations that use the default project interpreter (test frameworks’, quality tools’, and run/debug configurations) and commands run in the PhpStorm terminal.
CLI Interpreters
The dialog opens when you click next to the CLI Interpreter list in the Development environment section of the PHP page.
Use this dialog to configure PHP engines as interpreters , see Configure local PHP interpreters and Configure remote PHP interpreters. In this dialog, you can add new interpreters and edit or remove the existing ones.
The dialog consists of two panes. The left-hand pane lists all the configured PHP interpreters, both local and remote ones, and contains a toolbar for adding, removing, and copying PHP interpreter configurations. The contents of the right-hand pane depend on the type of the interpreter currently selected in the left-hand pane. Use the controls in this pane to edit the settings of the selected interpreter and even choose its type, if necessary.
Left-hand pane
The left-hand pane lists all the configured PHP interpreters, both local and remote ones, and contains a toolbar for adding, removing, and copying PHP interpreter configurations.
Click this button to add a new PHP interpreter to the list. From the popup list, choose the interpreter type ( Local or Remote ), and configure a local interpreter in the right-hand pane or a remote interpreter in the Configure PHP Remote Interpreter Dialog dialog that opens.
Click this button to remove the selected interpreter from the list.
Click this button to create a new interpreter with the settings copied from the selected one.
Right-hand pane
The contents of the right-hand pane depend on the type of the interpreter currently selected in the left-hand pane. Use the controls in this pane to edit the settings of the selected interpreter and even choose its type, if necessary.
Remote interpreter accessible through SSH
From this list, choose one of the created SSH configurations, or click and create a new configuration as described in Create SSH configurations.
Remote interpreter on a Vagrant instance
In this field, choose the folder that points at the environment you are going to use. Technically, it is the folder where the VagrantFile configuration file for the desired environment is located. Based on this setting, PhpStorm detects the Vagrant host and shows it as a link in the Vagrant Host URL read-only field.
Remote interpreter in a Docker container
In this field, specify the Docker configuration to use, see Configure the Docker daemon connection settings for details. Select a configuration from the list or click New. and create a new configuration on the Docker page that opens.
In this field, specify the base Docker image to use. Choose one of the previously downloaded or your custom images from the list or type the image name manually, for example, php:latest or php:7.0-cli . When you later launch the run configuration, Docker will search for the specified image on your machine. If the search fails, the image will be downloaded from the Docker Official Images repository on the Docker Registry page.
Remote interpreter running in a multi-container Docker Compose application
in this field, specify the Docker configuration to use, see Configure the Docker daemon connection settings for details. Select a configuration from the list or click New. and create a new configuration on the Docker page that opens.
In this field, specify the docker-compose.yml file defining the application’s services.
In this field, choose the desired application’s service.
In this field, define the environment variables. See Docker Compose run configuration settings for details.
In this area, choose how the Docker container for the selected service should be managed by PhpStorm.
- Always start a new container (‘docker-compose run’) : choose this option to have the container started via the run command. The container will be restarted upon each run.
- Connect to existing container (‘docker-compose exec’) : choose this option to have the container started once, and then connect to it via the exec command.
Remote interpreter running through Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
From this list, choose one of the installed Linux distributions to use.
General area
In this field, type the identifier to distinguish the interpreter from others, for example, php_installation_ .
In this field, specify the path to the PHP engine. Type the path manually or click and choose the executable file in the dialog that opens. PhpStorm detects the version of PHP and displays it in the PHP version read-only field.
PhpStorm also detects the debugging engine and the php.ini configuration file. The type of the debugging engine associated with the PHP interpreter and its version are displayed in the Debugger read-only field. If no debugger is detected or you have disabled it in php.ini file (see Configuring Xdebug for Using in the On-Demand Mode), the field shows Debugger: Not installed .
The location of php.ini is displayed in the Configuration file read-only field. To edit the php.ini in PhpStorm, click Open in Editor .
Click this button to check that the specified PHP home directory actually contains a PHP executable file. If no PHP executable is detected at the specified location, PhpStorm displays the corresponding error message.
Click this button to have PhpStorm display a separate information window with the installation details and the list of loaded extensions and configured options. Note that the additional options specified in the Configuration Options field of the PHP Interpreters dialog are not listed.
Advanced area
In this field, specify the location of the Xdebug extension to enable PhpStorm to activate it when necessary.
PhpStorm supports the On-Demand mode, where you can disable debugger for your global PHP installation and have it enabled automatically on demand only when you are debugging your command-line scripts or when you need code coverage reports. This lets your command line scripts (including Composer and unit tests) run much faster.
Use this field to customize the configuration settings of the installation by composing a string of configuration directives to be passed through the -d command line option and thus add new entries to the php.ini file. Click to open the Configuration Options dialog and create a list of new php.ini entries there.
Configuration options dialog
In this field, type the name of the new entry.
In this field, type the value of the new entry.
Click this button to have a new line added to the list and specify the name and value of a new entry there.
Click this button to remove the selected entry from the list.
Use these buttons to move the selected entry up or down in the list. The order of entries in the list determine the order in which they are passed through the -d command line option.
You can add as many entries as you need, just keep in mind that they will be transformed into a command line with its length limited to 256 characters.