How can I print the array in a Tree-like format--making it easier to read?
9 Answers
Try:
<pre><?php print_r($var); ?></pre>
It will give the proper tree structure that HTML's whitespace policy trims out.
1 Comment
David Thomas
As an addenda, I'll point out that I find that
<pre><?php print_r($var,true); ?></pre> gives more consistent (tree-like) results (though I haven't researched why that is)Are you wrapping the output in <pre> tags? That should get you pretty decent output, because it will show the spaces. Another option would be to install the xdebug extension, which then can replace var_dump so that it generates more-readable HTML output.
1 Comment
Alex Barrett
+1 for xdebug. The replacement
var_dump it provides supports arrays very nicely, almost eliminating the need for print_r entirely.function pr($var)
{
print '<pre>';
print_r(htmlspecialchars($var));
print '</pre>';
}
pr($myArray);
2 Comments
bobince
htmlspecialchars please. OK, so security isn't a concern for debugging code (though escaping certainly a habit you should always have), but any ‘<’ characters in your variables will mess up the output.
eyelidlessness
function pr($var) { print '<pre>' . htmlspecialchars(print_r($var, true)) . '</pre>'; }I found it's a good idea to print_r as follows
printf("<pre>%s</pre>", print_r($array, true));
It may not be ideal, but it's easier to read.
1 Comment
Marko
You need the second argument to print_r to be boolean true for it to return the value and not just print it out.
Try taking a look at Zend_Debug, a relatively plug-and-play module from the Zend Framework which does an excellent job at effectively dumping complex variables.
Usage:
$my_var = new StdObject(); // or whatever
Zend_Debug::dump($my_var);
die; // optional, prevents routing, forwarding away, etc.
Comments
You could print it into the error log:
error_log(print_r($myarray,1));
Note that you will see \n instead of carriage returns because it has to be collapsed in a single line.
Comments
Mabe the output looks like junk in the webpage. Try looking at the source of the page and it will be in tree-like format I suppose.
Comments
As many people previously mention, make sure to wrap it around a <pre> tag.
I would take an extra precautions to make sure nothing is wrapping that <pre> as well, such as <p> or <div> with a CSS class that can override the Pre's Style
Comments
May I suggest using var_export($array)?
It formats values with parsable php syntax
And even when you forget to output <pre> and </pre> tags,
while not very easy on the eye,
its output still makes more sense then print_r informal bunch of data.
print_rprints in plain text and not HTML. So you need to look at the source code to see the original output.