Start Using FirePHP

I've known about FirePHP for a while now and never really had the inclination to install and use it. Although I've been using FireBug for quite some time to debug the client-side and HTML/CSS issues I didn't really think that it could benefit me that much.

Finally I've managed to install and use FirePHP (it's quick and easy) and boy am I glad that I did. For any PHP developer out there I totally recommend spending the short amount of time it takes to get it up and running.

Basically include the FirePHP class file in your Project, use the OOP or procedural way of doing things and then start logging and displaying information to the FireBug console. It really couldn't be easier.

One of the main areas in which it really shines is in Ajax development. You can output variables to the console during an Ajax request and see what exactly is going on without having to output anything to screen and will really aid development and cut programming time.

I'm not going to go through how to install and use FirePHP because it's been very well documented by the offical website and there are a few really good tutorials out there (links can be found below).

Main Links

• http://www.firephp.org/
• http://www.firephp.org/Wiki/Reference/Tutorials

Tutorials

• http://yensdesign.com/2008/10/how-to-debug-php-code/
• http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/how-to-debug-php-using-firefox-with-firephp/
• http://sixrevisions.com/web-development/a-guide-on-advanced-logging-and-benchmarking-with-firephp/

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