title: How to debug the PHP 5 runtime on Windows with Visual Studio?
body: <p>Back in the PHP 4 days, you could load up the PHP runtime source code in Visual Studio via dsw files. Now with PHP 5 they introduced a new build system that is command line based. This means you can't easily load up PHP into Visual Studio and start a debugging session with the GUI setting breakpoints, using watches, etc.</p>
  
  <p>How would you recommend I set up a debugging environment for PHP 5 on Windows? Right now it seems like quite the monumental task, but I'm hoping there is an easier way.</p>
  
  <p>This is the step-by-step build instructions for Windows on the PHP wiki: <a href="http://wiki.php.net/internals/windows/stepbystepbuild" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.php.net/internals/windows/stepbystepbuild</a></p>