PHP: Colors in var_dump (Ubuntu)

Question

I'd like to see the colors and formatting that can come with var_dump. In my php.ini html_errors is set to On. This is confirmed by phpinfo().

My PHP version is 5.3.3 on Ubuntu 10.10. Anybody an idea?

Answer 1

You're looking for XDebug.

sudo apt-get install php5-xdebug
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

and you're done.

Answer 2

Note: Maerlyn's approach should be taken for its simplicity. I wasn't aware of php5-xdebug being in the repos. I've decided to leave this answer because I feel it adds some value to future readers.

---

    sudo apt-get install php5-dev php-pear

Install Xdebug

    sudo pecl install xdebug

You should see something like: Installing '/usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so' when it finishes installing. Make note of the 20090626+lfs portion.

Edit the php.ini

    gksudo gedit /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Add this to it:

    zend_extension="/usr/lib/php5/20090626+lfs/xdebug.so"

Restart apache

    sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now when you do a var_dump it should be formatted, this is assuming html_errors is On.

Answer 3

There's a php tool to do even more than xdebug's var_dump and it's a simple PHP class, so can be used on any environmment:

http://kint-php.github.io/kint/

Answer 4

you could use a javascript library to do the syntax highlighting. something like: http://alexgorbatchev.com/SyntaxHighlighter/ but there are many other options as well.