Dump() Function - Javascript equivalent of PHP's print_r()

The moment I saw the print_r() function of PHP, I fell in love with it. It is a very necessary function and I cant understand why no other language supports it. Perl does - if you are using the Data::Dumper module. I have created a function in PHP that will call print_r() function. It will put the code generated by the print_r function inside <pre> tags. That will make the data readable from the browser.

Latest Version of Dump() Function - Javascript equivalent of PHP's print_r() available at OpenJS

/** Function : dump()
* Arguments  : $data - the variable that must be displayed
***********************************************************************************
* Version    : 1.01.B
* Author     : Binny V A(binnyva (at) hotmail (dot) com : http://www.geocities.com/binnyva)
* Date       : June 3, 2005
* Last Update: Wednesday, July 13 2005
* Prints a array, an object or a scalar variable in an easy to view format.
***********************************************************************************/
function dump($data) {
if(is_array($data)) { //If the given variable is an array, print using the print_r function.
 print "<pre>-----------------------\n";
 print_r($data);
 print "-----------------------</pre>";
} elseif (is_object($data)) {
 print "<pre>==========================\n";
 var_dump($data);
 print "===========================</pre>";
}
else {
 print "=========&gt; ";
 var_dump($data);
 print " <=========";
}
}

I have ported the print_r function to javascript - hope that you will find this useful.

/**
* Function : dump()
* Arguments: The data - array,hash(associative array),object
*    The level - OPTIONAL
* Returns  : The textual representation of the array.
* This function was inspired by the print_r function of PHP.
* This will accept some data as the argument and return a
* text that will be a more readable version of the
* array/hash/object that is given.
*/
function dump(arr,level) {
var dumped_text = "";
if(!level) level = 0;

//The padding given at the beginning of the line.
var level_padding = "";
for(var j=0;j<level+1;j++) level_padding += "    ";

if(typeof(arr) == 'object') { //Array/Hashes/Objects
 for(var item in arr) {
  var value = arr[item];
 
  if(typeof(value) == 'object') { //If it is an array,
   dumped_text += level_padding + "'" + item + "' ...\n";
   dumped_text += dump(value,level+1);
  } else {
   dumped_text += level_padding + "'" + item + "' => \"" + value + "\"\n";
  }
 }
} else { //Stings/Chars/Numbers etc.
 dumped_text = "===>"+arr+"<===("+typeof(arr)+")";
}
return dumped_text;
} 

This is how the function is called. In this example we will give a complex array as the argument.

//Calling the function...
function init() {
var arra = new Array("Hloo",'s',23,23.1,"Hello World");
var assoc = {
 "val"  : "New",
 "number" : 14,
 "theting" : arra
};

alert(dump(assoc));
}
window.onload=init;

The result will be shown in the following format.

'val' => "New"
'number' => "14"
'theting' ...
   '0' => "Hloo"
   '1' => "s"
   '2' => "23"
   '3' => "23.1"
   '4' => "Hello World"

Technorati Tags: javascript debug php port

Del.icio.us Tags : javascript debug php port