Fw: / Re: Restructuring the Quanta module

[Sascha Cunz]

Hi Andras,

you've recently written a message to kde-core-devel, containing amongst other 
things, this:

>  We thought that for 3.3/4.0 it's time to restructure a little the Quanta
> module. [...] More such apps would come here, like a real PHP 
> debugger. [...]

KDevelop currently has still a quite a big lack in things related to PHP 
scripts. Basicly, we provide scripting support for PHP, but it is not in a 
state that i'd call "useable". We are lacking:

  - A nice PHP Parser. The one we currently have works with some simple 
    regexes and there are known issues of that crashing. And will not be
    compatible with PHP5 as it ain't maintained currently.
  - A manager for PHP projects.
  - A debugger for PHP projects ( Posibily a debugger that is so generic that
    it can debug any scripting application ?!? )

So, if you're planning on things like a PHP Debugger, could you please 
consider making it at least so generic, that we might benefit from it too?

Here are some features, that i'd like to have in a "real" PHP Debugger:

  - Debugging stand-alone scripts. That means, ones which are aimed to be
    called interactively via a shell instead of through a web server.

  - Integration into PHP's concept of "resources". Which is basicly: A PHP
    extentions registers a resource type and then creates resources of that
    type which can be stored in ZEND's hashes, thus be assigned to php
    variables. Examples are:
      $res = mysql_query( ... ); or
      $im = image_create( ... );
    A good PHP Debugger should have a mechanism to work with plugins, that can
    display those resources in a human understandable way. In case of an SQL
    Query this would probably mean the columns and rows displayed in a grid.
    And in case of a image, it would probably be the image itself, maybe it's
    color space or some other information about it.

As i'm personally interested in having a good and free debugger for PHP, i'd 
like to contribute to it, if someone starts creating a nice concept ;)

Cheers Sascha