Getting Started

Install via Composer:

composer require spiral/dumper

In your PHP code, simply use the Spiral\Dumper\Dumper class to output variables with syntax highlighting and structure folding:

use Spiral\Dumper\Dumper;

$dumper = new Dumper();
$dumper->dump($myVariable); // Outputs to stdout with CLI coloring

For web contexts, enable HTML output by setting the FORMAT env or using the factory:

$dumper = Dumper::createHtml(); // Automatically formats for browser with CSS
$dumper->dump($data);

Check README.md in the repo for basic CLI usage, color customization, and configuration examples.

Implementation Patterns

Debugging in Console Scripts: Use Dumper::createCli() for terminal-friendly, colorized output; integrates well with Symfony Console.
Dev-Only Dumping: Wrap dumps in a app()->isDebug() check to avoid shipping debug output in production.
Log Integration: Pipe dumper output into log channels by capturing via dump_to_stream() or using MemoryDumper to collect output before writing to logs.
Testing Helpers: In PHPUnit tests, capture dumped output using Dumper::capture() and assert structure/content for integration scenarios.
Configuration via Environment: Set DUMPER_FORMAT=html or DUMPER_THEME=dark to globally affect behavior without code changes.

Output Buffering Conflicts: If using Dumper inside a CLI command that already manipulates output (e.g., Symfony’s OutputInterface), avoid calling dump() directly—capture to string and manually write.
Memory Overhead: dump() outputs directly to php://stdout/php://output; large objects may flush buffers unexpectedly—prefer dumpToString() for safe inspection.
No HTML Auto-Encoding: HTML dumps are not escaped; never dump untrusted user input in production-facing contexts—risk of XSS if output reaches browser.
Theme Customization: Extensible via custom themes (JSON files); define your own color palette in config/dumper.php and reference via theme: 'mytheme'.
Subtree Split Quirks: Since this is a subtree split of spiral/framework, some internal classes may rely on tightly coupled Spiral components—avoid relying on internal Dumper\Renderer\* unless prepared for version-skew.