| 7 common.inc | debug($data, $label = NULL, $print_r = FALSE) |
| 8 common.inc | debug($data, $label = NULL, $print_r = FALSE) |
Outputs debug information.
The debug information is passed on to trigger_error() after being converted to a string using _drupal_debug_message().
Parameters
$data: Data to be output.
$label: Label to prefix the data.
$print_r: Flag to switch between print_r() and var_export() for data conversion to string. Set $print_r to TRUE when dealing with a recursive data structure as var_export() will generate an error.
File
- includes/
common.inc, line 7296 - Common functions that many Drupal modules will need to reference.
Code
<?php
function debug($data, $label = NULL, $print_r = FALSE) {
// Print $data contents to string.
$string = check_plain($print_r ? print_r($data, TRUE) : var_export($data, TRUE));
// Display values with pre-formatting to increase readability.
$string = '<pre>' . $string . '</pre>';
trigger_error(trim($label ? "$label: $string" : $string));
}
?>
Comments
If debug hits a bug you can't debug because debug hits a bug...
If you find yourself stuck unable to debug a bug in an object because a bug in the object breaks the debugger... for example, if an object carelessly uses == inappropriately causing an infinite loop and a Fatal Error: Nesting level too deep - recursive dependency? error on debug... here's some code that is ugly but better than nothing and at least gives you somewhere to start nosing around (replace $entity with the object in question):
foreach ($entity as $property => $value) {$value_string = is_string($value) ? '"'.$value.'"' : "[".gettype($value)."]";
debug( $property . " - " . $value_string);
}
Actually, ignore that...
(not sure why I can edit this comment but not my previous comment...)
Actually this error is the "an error" eluded to above that the $print_r flag is for. So, if you're getting the "Nesting level too deep - recursive dependency" error, just do...
debug($entity, 'Some label', true);...which is equivalent to...
debug(print_r($entity, true), 'some label');