The static method Zend_Debug::dump() prints or returns
information about an expression. This simple technique of debugging is
common because it is easy to use in an ad hoc fashion and requires no
initialization, special tools, or debugging environment.
The $var argument specifies the expression or variable
about which the Zend_Debug::dump() method outputs
information.
The $label argument is a string to be prepended to the
output of Zend_Debug::dump(). It may be useful, for
example, to use labels if you are dumping information about multiple
variables on a given screen.
The boolean $echo argument specifies whether the output
of Zend_Debug::dump() is echoed or not.
If TRUE, the output is echoed.
Regardless of the value of the $echo argument, the
return value of this method contains the output.
It may be helpful to understand that
Zend_Debug::dump() method wraps the PHP function
var_dump().
If the output stream is detected as a web presentation,
the output of var_dump() is escaped using htmlspecialchars()
and wrapped with (X)HTML <pre> tags.
Debugging with Zend_Log
Using Zend_Debug::dump() is best for ad hoc
debugging during software development. You can add code to dump
a variable and then remove the code very quickly.
Also consider the Zend_Log
component when writing more permanent debugging code. For example,
you can use the DEBUG log level and the
stream log writer to
output the string returned by Zend_Debug::dump().