Sending “var_dump” to FireBug console

Question

As you know var_dump() in addition to value show its data type and length.

Is there any way to log its output to

Answer 1

I always use this script in combination with Zend_Log_Writer_Firebug (using firephp http://www.firephp.org/), because after redirects in the applicaton or ajax requests debugging with xdebug does not always work as expected:

require_once '/Zend/Log.php';
require_once '/Zend/Log/Writer/Firebug.php';  
require_once '/Zend/Controller/Response/Http.php';
require_once '/Zend/Controller/Request/Http.php';

// create the logger and log writer
$writer = new Zend_Log_Writer_Firebug();
$logger = new Zend_Log($writer);

// get the wildfire channel
$channel = Zend_Wildfire_Channel_HttpHeaders::getInstance();

// create and set the HTTP response
$response = new Zend_Controller_Response_Http();
$channel->setResponse($response);

// create and set the HTTP request
$channel->setRequest(new Zend_Controller_Request_Http());

// record log messages
$logger->info('test');
$logger->info(var_export($_SESSION,true));
$logger->info(count(var_export($_SESSION,true)));
$logger->info(strlen(var_export('hello',true)));
$logger->info(get_type($_SESSION,true));  

// insert the wildfire headers into the HTTP response
$channel->flush();

// send the HTTP response headers
$response->sendHeaders();

You can build your own library to get the type of a variable:

Using a function call to var_dump_ret as argument for $logger->info() might be helpful, too. I haven't tested it yet.

function var_dump_ret($mixed = null) {
  ob_start();
  var_dump($mixed);
  $content = ob_get_contents();
  ob_end_clean();
  return $content;
}