PHP var_dump

Summary: in this tutorial, you will learn how to use the PHP var_dump() function to dump the information about a variable.

Introduction to the PHP var_dump function

The var_dump() is a built-in function that allows you to dump the information about a variable. The var_dump() function accepts a variable and displays its type and value.

Suppose that you have a variable called $balance with a value of 100:

<?php

$balance = 100;Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

To display the information of the $balance variable, you place it within parentheses that follow the var_dump function name like this:

<?php

$balance = 100;
var_dump($balance);Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

If you open the page on the web browser, you’ll see the following output:

int(100)

The output shows the value of the variable (100) and its type (int) which stands for integer.

The following shows how to dump information about two variables $amount and $message:

<?php

$balance = 100;
$message = 'Insufficient balance';

var_dump($balance);
var_dump($message);Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Output:

int(100) string(20) "Insufficient balance"Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

To make the output more intuitive, you can wrap the output of the var_dump() function in a pre tag like this:

<?php

$balance = 100;

echo '<pre>';
var_dump($balance);
echo '</pre>';

$message = 'Insufficient balance';

echo '<pre>';
var_dump($message);
echo '</pre>';
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Output:

int(100)
string(20) "Insufficient balance"Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

The output now is much more readable.

The dump helper function

It’s kind of tedious to always echo the opening <pre> and closing </pre> tags when you dump the information about the variable.

To make it easier, you can define a function and reuse it. For now, you can think that a function is a reusable piece of code that can be referenced by a name. A function may have input and also output.

PHP has many built-in functions like var_dump(). It also allows you to define your own functions. These functions are called user-defined functions. And you’ll learn more about it in the function tutorial.

The following defines a function called d() that accepts a variable. It shows the information about the variable and wraps the output in the <pre> tag:

<?php
function d($data)
{
	echo '<pre>';
	var_dump($data);
	echo '</pre>';
}
Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

To use the d() function, you can pass a variable to it as follows:

$balance = 100;
d($amount);

$message = 'Insufficient balance';
d($message);
Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

int(100)
string(20) "Insufficient balance"Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

The output is much cleaner now.

Dump and die using the var_dump() and die() functions

The die() function displays a message and terminates the execution of the script:

die($status);Code language: PHP (php)

Sometimes, you want to dump the information of a variable and terminate the script immediately. In this case, you can combine the var_dump() function with the die() function as follows:

<?php

$message = 'Dump and die example';

echo '<pre>';
var_dump($message);
echo '</pre>';
die();

echo 'After calling the die function';Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Output:

string(20) "Dump and die example"Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

How it works

• First, dump the information about the $message variable using the var_dump() function.
• Second, terminate the script immediately by calling the die() function.

Since the die() function terminates the script immediately, the following statement did not execute:

echo 'After calling the die function';Code language: PHP (php)

Therefore, you didn’t see the message in the output.

To make the code reusable, you can wrap the code snippet above in a function e.g., dd(). The name dd stands for the dump and die:

<?php


function dd($data)
{
	echo '<pre>';
	var_dump($data);
	echo '</pre>';
	die();
}Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Now, you can use the dd() function as follows:

<?php
// .. dd function

$message = 'Dump and die example';

dd($message);Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

In the later tutorial, you will learn how to place the functions in a file and reuse them in any script.

Summary

• Use the var_dump() function to dump the information about a variable.
• Wrap the output of the var_dump() function in a pre tag to make the output more readable.
• The die() function terminates the script immediately.
• Combine var_dump() and die() functions to dump and die.