Is there a pretty print for PHP?

Answer 1

If you want a nicer representation of any PHP variable (than just plain text), I suggest you try nice_r(); it prints out values plus relevant useful information (eg: properties and methods for objects). Disclaimer: I wrote this myself.

Answer 2

FirePHP is a firefox plugin that print have a much pretty logging feature.

Answer 3

I made this function to print an array for debugging:

    function print_a($arr) {
        print '<code><pre style="text-align:left; margin:10px;">'.print_r($arr, TRUE).'</pre></code>';
    }

Hope it helps, Tziuka S.

Answer 4

Since I found this via google searching for how to format json to make it more readable for troubleshooting.

ob_start() ;  print_r( $json ); $ob_out=ob_get_contents(); ob_end_clean(); echo "\$json".str_replace( '}', "}\n", $ob_out );

Answer 5

error_log(print_r($variable,true));

to send to syslog or eventlog for windows

Answer 6

Here's another simple dump without all the overhead of print_r:

function pretty($arr, $level=0){
    $tabs = "";
    for($i=0;$i<$level; $i++){
        $tabs .= "    ";
    }
    foreach($arr as $key=>$val){
        if( is_array($val) ) {
            print ($tabs . $key . " : " . "\n");
            pretty($val, $level + 1);
        } else {
            if($val && $val !== 0){
                print ($tabs . $key . " : " . $val . "\n"); 
            }
        }
    }
}
// Example:
$item["A"] = array("a", "b", "c");
$item["B"] = array("a", "b", "c");
$item["C"] = array("a", "b", "c");

pretty($item);

// -------------
// yields
// -------------
// A : 
//     0 : a
//     1 : b
//     2 : c
// B : 
//     0 : a
//     1 : b
//     2 : c
// C : 
//     0 : a
//     1 : b
//     2 : c