Examining the state of your PHP code

When you’re debugging PHP code, it can be helpful to examine the state of your code at a specific point in time. This can help you understand what’s happening in your code and identify any issues that may be causing problems.

Let’s look at some ways you can examine the state of your PHP code using built-in PHP functions.

Using error_log() to log messages

As discussed in the lesson on the built-in WordPress debugging options, you can use the error_log() function to log messages to the WordPress debug.log file.

This can be useful for debugging purposes, as it allows you to see what’s happening in your code without displaying it on the screen.

The error_log() function is not specific to WordPress, it’s a PHP function that you can use in any PHP code to log messages to the PHP error log file configured on the server.

However, once you enable the WordPress specific debugging options in your wp-config.php file, anything passed to error_log() will be logged to the WordPress debug.log file.

error_log( $some_variable );

This will log the value of $some_variable to the debug.log file, so you can see what it contains at that point in your code.

The benefit of using error_log() is that it allows you to log messages to a file without displaying them on the screen. If you display them on screen, especially in a production environment, you risk exposing sensitive information to users.

It’s also sometimes quicker to be able to see the output in a log file, rather than having to search through a long list of output on the screen.

Using print_r()

Another useful function for examining the state of your PHP code is print_r(). This function outputs the value of a variable, array, or object in a human-readable format, so you can see what it contains.

Take a look at this example PHP code.

$some_array = array( 'apple', 'banana', 'cherry' );
print_r( $some_array );

This code will output the following to the screen:

Array ( [0] => apple [1] => banana [2] => cherry )

Developers will often wrap print_r() in <pre> tags to make the output easier to read.

echo '<pre>';
print_r( $some_array );
echo '</pre>';

This will output the following to the screen:

Array
(
    [0] => apple
    [1] => banana
    [2] => cherry
)

Notice that by default print_r() outputs the value of the variable, but does not return it. If you want to use the output of print_r() with error_log(), you need to set the second parameter to true.

error_log( print_r( $some_array, true ) );

This will log the output of the print_r call to the debug.log file, so you can see what $some_array contains at that point in your code.

Using var_dump()

The var_dump() function is another useful function for examining the state of your PHP code. This function outputs the value of a variable, array, or object in a human-readable format, along with additional information about the variable type and length.

Take a look at this example PHP code.

$some_array = array( 'apple', 'banana', 'cherry' );
echo '<pre>';
var_dump( $some_array );
echo '</pre>';

This code will output the following to the screen:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  string(5) "apple"
  [1]=>
  string(6) "banana"
  [2]=>
  string(6) "cherry"
}

Notice that var_dump() outputs the value of the variable, along with additional information about the variable type and length. This can be useful for debugging purposes, as it provides more detailed information about the variable than print_r().

Unlike print_r(), var_dump() does not have an option to return the output to a variable, so you can’t use it directly with error_log().

However, you can use something called output buffering to capture the output of var_dump() and then log it to the debug.log file.

$some_array = array( 'apple', 'banana', 'cherry' );
ob_start();
var_dump( $some_array );
$output = ob_get_clean();
error_log( $output );

Developers will often use this type of code in a special logging function, to be able to use both var_dump and error_log together.

function log_var_dump( $variable ) {
    ob_start();
    var_dump( $variable );
    $output = ob_get_clean();
    error_log( $output );
}

Further reading

For more information on the functions mentioned in this lesson, check out the following pages in the PHP documentation:

PHP var_dump() function

PHP error_log() function

PHP print_r() function