Looking for easy way to analyze var_dump (PHP) on large objects

Question

I know (PHP's) var_dump is supposed to be "human readable" and all, but analyzing large objects is just a pain in the neck. I am struggling to make sense of a few of the large objects that are being passed around in a script that we are running. (I know that using xdebug with and IDE is a good idea, but I have not been able to get xdebug to run on this project for some reason - several days lost, ugh).

Any ideas on how I can easily digest the contents of a really big var_dump? Any ideas are welcome... Although I am hoping that there is something similar to Thomas Frank's JSON tool (where you just put some code in and it gives a nice graphical representation).

Answer 1

Interesting question. I'd make my own var_dump() equivalent based on some recursive function. With some parameters (such as nesting level, certain element name, etc) to pass it could be quite useful I think.

Answer 2

I'd just use dBug.

Answer 3

You could take a look at FirePHP. It enables you to write information to the firebug-console. If you write an array or object to the log and hover with your mouse over it, you get a nice presentation of the contents of that array. Here is a screenshot of a simple example.