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WordPress Custom Menu Development in WordPress The Walker Class for WordPress Customizing the Walker Class to Include Custom Menu Item Fields

Posted by Collin Berg
Collin Berg
33,471 Points

Var_dump vs Var_export?

In the video he uses var_export to get the value of $item. However, since we're doing debugging/ testing to see if our item is being retrieved properly, shouldn't we be using var_dump? When should we use one over the other?

1 Answer

Matthew Smart
Matthew Smart
12,567 Points
Matthew Smart
Matthew Smart
12,567 Points

var_dump is for debugging purposes. http://php.net/var_dump

// var_dump(array('', false, 42, array('42')));
array(4) {
   [0]=> string(0) ""
   [1]=> bool(false)
   [2]=> int(42)
   [3]=> array(1) {[0]=>string(2) "42")}
 }

var_export prints valid php code. Useful if you calculated some values and want the results as a constant in another script. Note that var_export can not handle reference cycles/recursive arrays, whereas var_dump and print_r check for these. http://php.net/manual/en/function.var-export.php

array (
   0 => '',
   2 => false,
   2 => 42,
   3 => array (0 => '42',),
)

print_r is for debugging purposes, too, but does not include the member's type. It's a good idea to use if you know the types of elements in your array, but can be misleading otherwise: http://php.net/print_r

Array (
     [0] =>
     [1] =>
     [2] => 42
     [3] => Array ([0] => 42)
)

Personally, the one I use most often is print_r() with pre tags like seen below:

echo "<pre>";
print_r($variable);
echo "</pre>";

The Pre tags make it visually more appealing.

Collin Berg
Collin Berg
33,471 Points

So print_r is just a cleaner version of var_dump?