Check out the Interactive Debugging in PHP talk from OSCON on Presentate.
PsySH is available via Composer, or you can use it directly from this repository:
git clone https://github.com/bobthecow/psysh.git
cd psysh
./bin/psysh
But by far the easiest way to use it is to download the precompiled phar:
wget psysh.org/psysh
chmod +x psysh
./psysh
While PsySH strives to detect the right settings automatically, you might want to configure it yourself. Just add a file to ~/.psysh/rc.php:
<?php
return array(
// In PHP 5.4+, PsySH will default to your `cli.pager` ini setting. If this
// is not set, it falls back to `less`. It is recommended that you set up
// `cli.pager` in your `php.ini` with your preferred output pager.
//
// If you are running PHP 5.3, or if you want to use a different pager only
// for Psy shell sessions, you can override it here.
'pager' => 'more',
// By default, PsySH will use a 'forking' execution loop if pcntl is
// installed. This is by far the best way to use it, but you can override
// the default by explicitly enabling or disabling this functionality here.
'usePcntl' => false,
// PsySH uses readline if you have it installed, because interactive input
// is pretty awful without it. But you can explicitly disable it if you hate
// yourself or something.
'useReadline' => false,
// "Default includes" will be included once at the beginning of every PsySH
// session. This is a good place to add autoloaders for your favorite
// libraries.
'defaultIncludes' => array(
__DIR__.'/include/bootstrap.php',
),
// While PsySH ships with a bunch of great commands, it's possible to add
// your own for even more awesome. Any Psy command added here will be
// available in your Psy shell sessions.
'commands' => array(
// The `parse` command is a command used in the development of PsySH.
// Given a string of PHP code, it pretty-prints the
// [PHP Parser](https://github.com/nikic/PHP-Parser) parse tree. It
// prolly won't be super useful for most of you, but it's there if you
// want to play :)
new \Psy\Command\ParseCommand,
),
);The PsySH doc command is great for documenting source code, but you'll need a little something extra for PHP core documentation. Download one of the following PHP Manual files and drop it in ~/.psysh/: