README

A smarter alternative to var_dump for PHP8.3+

The goal is to provide a friendly debug tool that is framework independent and works across multiple environments.

Installing

This project is still in beta. Backwards incompatible changes might be introduced during this time.

composer require --dev bonemeijer/smartdump

Basic usage

By default, SmartDump is configured to detect where you are debugging from and will output either plaintext or html. For example: when you dump from the commandline, a plaintext output is used. But when you are debugging from a browser, an interactive HTML output is used.

There is a main SmartDump class, which provides a friendly global interface to debug a variable anywhere in your code. But don't worry, you can use and configure your own instances too.

\SmartDump\SmartDump::dump($variable);

Shortcut functions

Even easier are the shortcut functions. These live in the global namespace so you don't have to do any imports when you quickly want to debug a variable.

Available functions:

smartdump($variable) - shortcut for \SmartDump\SmartDump::dump($variable);
smartdump_text($variable) - dump plaintext to output
smartdump_html($variable) - dump simplehtml to output
smartdump_text_stream - dump plaintext to a file or url
d($variabe) - dump a context aware format to output
o($variabe) - dump a context aware format to output, clear output buffer and exit()

TIP - the shortcut function smartdump() uses the global SmartDump class, so you can configure the desired behaviour through the SmartDump class.

Advanced usage

SmartDump will internally convert any passed variable to a Node using a NodeFactory. These Nodes will then be passed to a Dumper, which will accept Formatter to render an output format.

Nodes

A Node is basically an internal representation of a variable. The DefaultNodeFactory has support for all regular PHP variable types like booleans, strings, integers, floats, arrays, objects, resources and NULL values.

Formatters

A formatter formats the Node to output that can be handles by a Dumper. At this time there are only string type formatters, which will render a Node to a string.

By default, the ContextAwareStringFormatter will be used, which will return a formatter based on where you are debugging from.

Available formatters:

PlainTextStringFormatter - formats to plaintext, for use in commandline and other text based environments
DomStringFormatter - can use a Markup document to output HTML (or someday XML or any other markup language)
ContextAwareStringFormatter - switches between plaintext and dom based on the current environment
CallBackStringFormatter - accepts callbacks to determine which formatter is used

To globally use a different formatter for all SmartDump::dump() calls:

\SmartDump\SmartDump::setFormatter(
    new \SmartDump\Formatter\StringFormatter\PlainTextStringFormatter()
);

Dumpers

A Dumper will determine how the formatted node will be handled. By default, the OutputDumper is used, which will just echo the output to the screen.

Available dumpers:

OutputDumper - simply echo's the output
StreamDumper - dumps the formatted output to a file or stream

To globally use a different dumper for all SmartDump::dump() calls:

\SmartDump\SmartDump::setDumper(
    new \SmartDump\Dumper\StreamDumper('output.txt')
);

Deployment

Don't. Don't deploy debug tools. Which is why I recommend using the --dev flag during installation.

Versioning

SmartDump uses SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

Authors

Maurice Bonemeijer - Initial work - Bonemeijer

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details

bonemeijer / smartdump

Maintainers

Details