---
title: PHPUnit and Xdebug
published: 2017-01-12
---

Having the [Xdebug](https://xdebug.org/) PHP extension always loaded slows 
down [Composer](https://getcomposer.org/) and 
[Phan](https://github.com/etsy/phan).

But I do want to have Xdebug enabled for generating code coverage reports using
[PHPUnit](https://phpunit.de/).

It took me some time to figure this out, and it is not so hard.

First step: install the Xdebug extension, on Fedora:

    $ sudo dnf -y install php-pecl-xdebug

Edit the file `/etc/php.d/15-xdebug.ini` to disable loading the extension:

    ;zend_extension=xdebug.so

Now, to enable this extension _just_ for running PHPUnit:

    $ php -dextension=/usr/lib64/php/modules/xdebug.so /usr/bin/phpunit \
        --coverage-html coverage

To automate this, add the following `alias` to your `$HOME/.bashrc`:

    alias phpunit="/usr/bin/php -dextension=/usr/lib64/php/modules/xdebug.so /usr/bin/phpunit"

It was surprisingly hard to figure this out, hope it helps someone!