PHPDump

PHP version of ColdFusion's <cfdump>.

The benefits in comparison to var_dump() are that it outputs variables in a visually appealing format and provides more information.

Differences to Josh Sherman's 'dBug' are:

• Arrays are displayed differently depending on whether they are indexed or associative
• Objects are displayed like in ColdFusion
• PHPDoc info is included in object output
• Distributed under MIT license

Features

• Displays variables in a structured and colored format
• Output is foldable
• Provides advanced information on objects and resources
• Supported variable types are: All primitive types, arrays, objects, PDO query results, SimpleXML objects, resources

Usage

You just need to include the debug.php file:

include_once 'debug.php';

When that is done you can output a variable like this:

dump($variable);

Examples

Indexed array

Code:

$arr = ['a', 'b', 'c'];
dump($arr);

Output:

Associative array

Code:

$arr = ['brand' => 'Audi', 'model' => 'A8'];
dump($arr);

Output:

Object

Code:

class SimpleClass {
  private $property;

  function __construct($property) {
    $this->property = $property;
  }

  function outputProperty() {
    echo $property;
  }
}

dump(new SimpleClass('value'));

Output:

Database query result (PDO)

Code:

$db = new PDO('pgsql:host=localhost;dbname=mydb', 'user', 'password');
$select = $db->prepare('SELECT *
                        FROM persons
                        WHERE LastName LIKE :LastName
                        ORDER BY LastName ASC');
$select->execute([':LastName' => 'M%']);

dump($select);

Output:

XML (SimpleXML)

Code:

$xml = simplexml_load_file('XMLFile.xml');
dump($xml);

Output:

Resources

Code:

$file = fopen('file.xyz', 'r');
dump($file);

Output:

Version history

0.4

• Fixed output for the case no or tag can be found
• Added recursion detection
• Fixed styling issues

0.3

• Added output of resources (Issue #3)
• Made PHPDump the default in the example

0.2

• Added output folding (Issue #2)
• Removed need to add endOutput(); at the end of the script (Issue #1)

0.1 Initial version