Re: Finer points of debugging: vardump vs. print_r

I generally include the following function:

        function dump( $label, $input ){
                echo( "<PRE>" );
                echo( "<H2>$label</H2>\n" );
                print_r( $input );
                echo( "</PRE>" );
                return 1;
        }

or if you like javascript this pops up an alert wherever you insert the dump call in your page

        function dump( $label, $input ){
                ob_start();
                print_r( $input );
                $gc     = ob_get_contents();
                ob_end_clean();

                $gc = preg_replace( "/'/", "\\'", $gc );
                $gc = preg_replace( '/\n/', '\\n', $gc );
                echo( "<script>alert( '$label\\n".$gc."' );</script>" );
                return 1;
        }

then for simple debugging I call dump( "My Label", $my_var ); With the javascript you can do some cool things like having divs generated per $label. morgan At 02:26 PM 4/9/2001, you wrote:

Just a question that has been besetting me for a while: which is better for debugging -- vardump( ) or print( ) ? Does anyone have a preference? Why? Is one better than the other? Thanks for answering this prickly question! John Lim -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-general-unsubscribe@lists.php.net For additional commands, e-mail: php-general-help@lists.php.net To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin@lists.php.net