The VarDumper Component

Configuring the Dump Server with Environment Variables

If you prefer to not modify the application configuration (e.g. to quickly debug a project given to you) use the VAR_DUMPER_FORMAT env var.

First, start the server as usual:

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$ ./vendor/bin/var-dump-server

Then, run your code with the VAR_DUMPER_FORMAT=server env var by configuring this value in the .env file of your application. For console commands, you can also define this env var as follows:

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$ VAR_DUMPER_FORMAT=server [your-cli-command]

Cloners

A cloner is used to create an intermediate representation of any PHP variable. Its output is a Data object that wraps this representation.

You can create a Data object this way:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;

$cloner = new VarCloner();
$data = $cloner->cloneVar($myVar);
// this is commonly then passed to the dumper
// see the example at the top of this page
// $dumper->dump($data);

Whatever the cloned data structure, resulting Data objects are always serializable.

A cloner applies limits when creating the representation, so that one can represent only a subset of the cloned variable. Before calling cloneVar(), you can configure these limits:

setMaxItems()

Configures the maximum number of items that will be cloned past the minimum nesting depth. Items are counted using a breadth-first algorithm so that lower level items have higher priority than deeply nested items. Specifying -1 removes the limit.

setMinDepth()

Configures the minimum tree depth where we are guaranteed to clone all the items. After this depth is reached, only setMaxItems items will be cloned. The default value is 1, which is consistent with older Symfony versions.

setMaxString()

Configures the maximum number of characters that will be cloned before cutting overlong strings. Specifying -1 removes the limit.

Before dumping it, you can further limit the resulting Data object using the following methods:

withMaxDepth()

Limits dumps in the depth dimension.

withMaxItemsPerDepth()

Limits the number of items per depth level.

withRefHandles()

Removes internal objects' handles for sparser output (useful for tests).

seek()

Selects only sub-parts of already cloned arrays, objects or resources.

Unlike the previous limits on cloners that remove data on purpose, these can be changed back and forth before dumping since they do not affect the intermediate representation internally.

Dumpers

A dumper is responsible for outputting a string representation of a PHP variable, using a Data object as input. The destination and the formatting of this output vary with dumpers.

This component comes with an HtmlDumper for HTML output and a CliDumper for optionally colored command line output.

For example, if you want to dump some $variable, do:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\CliDumper;

$cloner = new VarCloner();
$dumper = new CliDumper();

$dumper->dump($cloner->cloneVar($variable));

By using the first argument of the constructor, you can select the output stream where the dump will be written. By default, the CliDumper writes on php://stdout and the HtmlDumper on php://output. But any PHP stream (resource or URL) is acceptable.

Instead of a stream destination, you can also pass it a callable that will be called repeatedly for each line generated by a dumper. This callable can be configured using the first argument of a dumper's constructor, but also using the setOutput() method or the second argument of the dump() method.

For example, to get a dump as a string in a variable, you can do:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\CliDumper;

$cloner = new VarCloner();
$dumper = new CliDumper();
$output = '';

$dumper->dump(
    $cloner->cloneVar($variable),
    function (int $line, int $depth) use (&$output): void {
        // A negative depth means "end of dump"
        if ($depth >= 0) {
            // Adds a two spaces indentation to the line
            $output .= str_repeat('  ', $depth).$line."\n";
        }
    }
);

// $output is now populated with the dump representation of $variable

Another option for doing the same could be:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\CliDumper;

$cloner = new VarCloner();
$dumper = new CliDumper();
$output = fopen('php://memory', 'r+b');

$dumper->dump($cloner->cloneVar($variable), $output);
$output = stream_get_contents($output, -1, 0);

// $output is now populated with the dump representation of $variable

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$output = $dumper->dump($cloner->cloneVar($variable), true);

Dumpers implement the DataDumperInterface interface that specifies the dump(Data $data) method. They also typically implement the DumperInterface that frees them from re-implementing the logic required to walk through a Data object's internal structure.

The HtmlDumper uses a dark theme by default. Use the setTheme() method to use a light theme:

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// ...
$htmlDumper->setTheme('light');

The HtmlDumper limits string length and nesting depth of the output to make it more readable. These options can be overridden by the third optional parameter of the dump(Data $data) method:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\HtmlDumper;

$output = fopen('php://memory', 'r+b');

$dumper = new HtmlDumper();
$dumper->dump($var, $output, [
    // 1 and 160 are the default values for these options
    'maxDepth' => 1,
    'maxStringLength' => 160,
]);

The output format of a dumper can be fine tuned by the two flags DUMP_STRING_LENGTH and DUMP_LIGHT_ARRAY which are passed as a bitmap in the third constructor argument. They can also be set via environment variables when using assertDumpEquals($dump, $data, $filter, $message) during unit testing.

The $filter argument of assertDumpEquals() can be used to pass a bit field of Caster::EXCLUDE_* constants and influences the expected output produced by the different casters.

If DUMP_STRING_LENGTH is set, then the length of a string is displayed next to its content:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\AbstractDumper;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\CliDumper;

$varCloner = new VarCloner();
$var = ['test'];

$dumper = new CliDumper();
echo $dumper->dump($varCloner->cloneVar($var), true);

// array:1 [
//   0 => "test"
// ]

$dumper = new CliDumper(null, null, AbstractDumper::DUMP_STRING_LENGTH);
echo $dumper->dump($varCloner->cloneVar($var), true);

// (added string length before the string)
// array:1 [
//   0 => (4) "test"
// ]

If DUMP_LIGHT_ARRAY is set, then arrays are dumped in a shortened format similar to PHP's short array notation:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\AbstractDumper;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\CliDumper;

$varCloner = new VarCloner();
$var = ['test'];

$dumper = new CliDumper();
echo $dumper->dump($varCloner->cloneVar($var), true);

// array:1 [
//   0 => "test"
// ]

$dumper = new CliDumper(null, null, AbstractDumper::DUMP_LIGHT_ARRAY);
echo $dumper->dump($varCloner->cloneVar($var), true);

// (no more array:1 prefix)
// [
//   0 => "test"
// ]

If you would like to use both options, then you can combine them by using the logical OR operator |:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\AbstractDumper;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Dumper\CliDumper;

$varCloner = new VarCloner();
$var = ['test'];

$dumper = new CliDumper(null, null, AbstractDumper::DUMP_STRING_LENGTH | AbstractDumper::DUMP_LIGHT_ARRAY);
echo $dumper->dump($varCloner->cloneVar($var), true);

// [
//   0 => (4) "test"
// ]

Casters

Objects and resources nested in a PHP variable are "cast" to arrays in the intermediate Data representation. You can customize the array representation for each object/resource by hooking a Caster into this process. The component already includes many casters for base PHP classes and other common classes.

If you want to build your own Caster, you can register one before cloning a PHP variable. Casters are registered using either a Cloner's constructor or its addCasters() method:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\VarCloner;

$myCasters = [...];
$cloner = new VarCloner($myCasters);

// or

$cloner->addCasters($myCasters);

The provided $myCasters argument is an array that maps a class, an interface or a resource type to a callable:

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$myCasters = [
    'FooClass' => $myFooClassCallableCaster,
    ':bar resource' => $myBarResourceCallableCaster,
];

As you can notice, resource types are prefixed by a : to prevent colliding with a class name.

Because an object has one main class and potentially many parent classes or interfaces, many casters can be applied to one object. In this case, casters are called one after the other, starting from casters bound to the interfaces, the parents classes and then the main class. Several casters can also be registered for the same resource type/class/interface. They are called in registration order.

Casters are responsible for returning the properties of the object or resource being cloned in an array. They are callables that accept five arguments:

• the object or resource being casted;
• an array modeled for objects after PHP's native (array) cast operator;
• a Stub object representing the main properties of the object (class, type, etc.);
• true/false when the caster is called nested in a structure or not;
• A bit field of Caster ::EXCLUDE_* constants.

Here is a simple caster not doing anything:

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\Stub;

function myCaster(mixed $object, array $array, Stub $stub, bool $isNested, int $filter): array
{
    // ... populate/alter $array to your needs

    return $array;
}

For objects, the $array parameter comes pre-populated using PHP's native (array) casting operator or with the return value of $object->__debugInfo() if the magic method exists. Then, the return value of one Caster is given as the array argument to the next Caster in the chain.

When casting with the (array) operator, PHP prefixes protected properties with a \0*\0 and private ones with the class owning the property. For example, \0Foobar\0 will be the prefix for all private properties of objects of type Foobar. Casters follow this convention and add two more prefixes: \0~\0 is used for virtual properties and \0+\0 for dynamic ones (runtime added properties not in the class declaration).

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use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Caster\LinkStub;
use Symfony\Component\VarDumper\Cloner\Stub;

function ProductCaster(Product $object, array $array, Stub $stub, bool $isNested, int $filter = 0): array
{
    $array['brochure'] = new LinkStub($array['brochure']);

    return $array;
}