Srijith Unplugged

There are various methods and commands used in PHP to print an array of elements. They are different in the way they print the array elements.
I will cover three main ones I usually use.
Lets assume an array as follows to explain the various types of printing.

$array = array(
        'string' => 'abcd',
        'bool' => false,
        'num' => 4,
        array(1,3,4,'2343',true)
                );

1. var_dump
   The syntax for the function is var_dump($array) and the result is

   array(4) {
     ["string"]=>
     string(4) "abcd"
     ["bool"]=>
     bool(false)
     ["num"]=>
     int(4)
     [0]=>
     array(5) {
       [0]=>
       int(1)
       [1]=>
       int(3)
       [2]=>
       int(4)
       [3]=>
       string(4) "2343"
       [4]=>
       bool(true)
     }
   }

2. print_r
   The syntax for the function is print_r($array) and the result is

   Array
   (
       [string] => abcd
       [bool] =>
       [num] => 4
       [0] => Array
           (
               [0] => 1
               [1] => 3
               [2] => 4
               [3] => 2343
               [4] => 1
           )
   
   )

3. var_export
   The syntax for the function is var_export($array) and the result is

   array (
     'string' => 'abcd',
     'bool' => false,
     'num' => 4,
     0 =>
     array (
       0 => 1,
       1 => 3,
       2 => 4,
       3 => '2343',
       4 => true,
     ),
   )

To see the difference check the way the array elements are displayed and how Boolean and nested arrays are handled. var_export is used for reusing that printed array in a php file. This is useful when you generate an array which should be used in another php code where you can easily copy paste and use.

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