var_export

(PHP 4 >= 4.2.0)

var_export -- Outputs or returns a parsable string representation of a variable

Description

mixed var_export ( mixed expression [, bool return])

This function returns structured information about the variable that is passed to this function. It is similar to var_dump() with two exceptions. The first one is that the returned representation is valid PHP code, the second that it will also return protected and private properties of an object with PHP 5.

You can also return the variable representation by using TRUE as second parameter to this function.

<?php
$a
= array (1, 2, array ("a", "b", "c"));
var_export($a);
?>

output:

array (
  0 => 1,
  1 => 2,
  2 => 
  array (
    0 => 'a',
    1 => 'b',
    2 => 'c',
  ),
)
<?php

$b
= 3.1;
$v = var_export($b, true);
echo
$v;

?>

output:

3.1

See also var_export() and print_r().