PHP print array with one key per line so it's easier on the eyes?

Question

How can I print an array so instead of being all a single line such as:

Array ( [0] => Array ( [Palabra] => correr [Tipo] => Verbo ) [1] => Array ( [Palabra] => es [Tipo] => Verbo [PersonaSujeto] => tercera [CantidadSujeto] => singular [Tiempo] => presente )

It displays something more readable like this or similar:

Array ( 
    [0] => Array ( 
        [Palabra] => correr
        [1] => Array ( 
             [Tipo] => Verbo 
             [Tiempo] => Infinitivo) )
    [1] => Array ( 
        [Palabra] => es 
        [Tipo] => Verbo 
        [PersonaSujeto] => tercera 
        [CantidadSujeto] => singular 
        [Tiempo] => presente )

you mean like: `echo '
'; print_r($array); echo '
';` – Book Of Zeus Dec 16 '11 at 22:47 — Book Of Zeus, Dec 16 '11 at 22:47
yeah, sure he means like that :) – Alfabravo Dec 16 '11 at 22:48 — Alfabravo, Dec 16 '11 at 22:48

score 70 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 17 '14 at 13:52

70

It is printed out with a line break, but in HTML line breaks are meaningless. You can do one of 2 things:

Tell the browser it's not an HTML document, but a text, by placing the following code before any output is sent:
```
header('Content-type: text/plain');
```

Simply have <pre> tags around the printed array:

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

edited Jul 17 '14 at 13:52

insertusernamehere

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answered Dec 16 '11 at 22:50

Madara's Ghost

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score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 16 '11 at 23:05

12

I love code highlighting. This example displays the beatified array with highlighted code

<?php
$debug_data = array(1,2,5,6,8,7,'aaa');

echo str_replace(array('&lt;?php&nbsp;','?&gt;'), '', highlight_string( '<?php ' .     var_export($debug_data, true) . ' ?>', true ) );
?>

enter image description here

answered Dec 16 '11 at 23:05

FDisk

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I think I'm going to add this to my personal code, love it :) – Chris Baker Aug 08 '12 at 14:19
yeah this is pretty great – adam rowe Jun 27 '18 at 13:20

Chris Baker · Answer 3 · 2011-12-16T23:00:37.287

If you wrap the output of functions like print_r, var_dump, and var_export in a <pre> tag, it will be relatively nicely formatted.

The reason is because the output of the functions is plain text, but when you look at it in a browser, the browser considers it HTML. The new line characters in the plaintext output are not meaningful to HTML, as new lines are ignored.

To see this in action, try viewing the source - you'll see the nicely formatted output there.

The pre HTML tag tells a browser "everything inside of this block is pre-formated". New lines are treated as new lines, spacing is respected (HTML also doesn't care about sequences of spaces).

So, you're left with something like this:

echo '<pre>'.print_r($my_array).'</pre>';

Instead of doing that all over my code, I like to use a composite function like this (I call it print_p so it is like typing print_r)

function print_p($value = false, $exit = false, $return=false, $recurse=false) {
    if ($return === true && $exit === true)
        $return = false;
    $tab = str_repeat("&nbsp;", 8);
    if ($recurse == false) {
        $recurse = 0;
        $output = '<div style="width:100%; border: 2px dotted red; background-color: #fbffd6; display: block; padding: 4px;">';
        $backtrace = debug_backtrace();
        $output .= '<b>Line: </b>'.$backtrace[0]['line'].'<br>';
        $output .= '<b>File: </b> '.$backtrace[0]['file'].'<br>';
        $indent = "";
    } else {
        $output = '';
        $indent = str_repeat("&nbsp;", $recurse * 8);
    }
    if (is_array($value)) {
        if ($recurse == false) {
            $output .= '<b>Type: </b> Array<br>';
            $output .= "<br>array (<br>";
        } else {
            $output .= "array (<br>";
        }
        $items = array();
        foreach ($value as $k=>$v) {
            if (is_object($v) || is_array($v))
                $items[] = $indent.$tab."'".$k."'=>".print_p($v, false, true, ($recurse+1));
            else
                $items[] = $indent.$tab."'".$k."'=>".($v===null ? "NULL" : "'".$v."'");
        }
        $output .= implode(',<br>', $items);
        if ($recurse == false)
            $output .= '<br>)';
        else
            $output .= '<br>'.$indent.')';
    } elseif (is_object($value)) {
        if ($recurse == false) {
            $output .= '<b>Type: </b> Object<br>';
            $output .= '<br>object ('.get_class($value).'){'."<br>";
        } else {
            $output .= "object (".get_class($value)."){<br>";
        }

        // needed conditional because base class function dump is protected
        $vars = get_object_vars($value);
        $vars = (is_array($vars) == true ? $vars : array());

        $items = array();
        foreach ($vars as $k=>$v) {
            if (is_object($v) || is_array($v))
                $items[] = $indent.$tab."'".$k."'=>".print_p($v, false, true, ($recurse+1));
            else
                $items[] = $indent.$tab."'".$k."'=>".($v===null ? "NULL" : "'".$v."'");
        }
        $output .= implode(',<br>', $items);
        $vars = get_class_methods($value);
        $items = array();
        foreach ($vars as $v) {
            $items[] = $indent.$tab.$tab.$v;
        }
        $output .= '<br>'.$indent.$tab.'<b>Methods</b><br>'.implode(',<br>', $items);
        if ($recurse == false)
            $output .= '<br>}';
        else
            $output .= '<br>'.$indent.'}';
    } else {
        if ($recurse == false) {
            $output .= '<b>Type: </b> '.gettype($value).'<br>';
            $output .= '<b>Value: </b> '.$value;
        } else {
            $output .= '('.gettype($value).') '.$value;
        }
    }
    if ($recurse == false)
        $output .= '</div>';
    if ($return === false)
        echo $output;
    if ($exit === true)
        die();
    return $output;
}

... then you do this:

print_p($my_array);

...and get the output:

enter image description here

This is nice because it a) will take any type of variable, objects, arrays, strings, and b) tell you where the output is coming from. It can get really frustrating if you lose track of where you had put a debugging message and have to spend time searching all over for it! :)

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 19 '16 at 03:59

This is the best friend of a PHP programmer:

function pa($value, $exit = true){
  echo "<pre>";
  print_r($value);
  echo "</pre>";
  if($exit){
    exit();
  }
}

If you need use like this:

pa($arr);

or

pa($obj);

If you don't want to exit

pa($obj, false);

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 01 '22 at 16:39

1

A different/quick way to display one-line format in html:

echo nl2br(print_r($myarray, true));

answered Jul 01 '22 at 16:39

user6096790

380
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joshdutcher · Answer 6 · 2018-01-10T22:08:44.890

0

All the above answers are good. I like to include a debug() php function in my functions so anywhere in my app I can just call debug($my_array); to dump the array to the screen (or the html), with some nice readability formatting. Here it is on github.

Of course these days most servers and frameworks have their own built-in version of something like this, but for building something from scratch this works.

edited Jan 10 '18 at 22:08

answered Oct 14 '14 at 21:25

joshdutcher

11
3

Provided link is broken. – Pedro Scarapicchia Junior Jan 10 '18 at 18:14

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 16 '11 at 22:50

0

Add <pre>

Example:

<pre>
<?php
    print_r($array);
?>
<pre>

answered Dec 16 '11 at 22:50

SlavaNov

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score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Dec 16 '11 at 23:15

0

As other answers say: There are already newlines and tabs in the print_r output. And you can see it using <pre> or seeing as plain text.
You may install xdebug to make output of print_r more readable

answered Dec 16 '11 at 23:15

RiaD

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PHP print array with one key per line so it's easier on the eyes?

8 Answers8