Or are var_dump and var_export too different for your tastes?

And to aid in having to remember which vars go into which function, I wrap both in another function that chooses for me:

if ((is_string($var) && ! preg_match('/^\\s*$/', $var))) { // non-whitespace strings
$var = print_r($var, true);
}
else {
if ( ! function_exists('xdebug_disable')) {
if (is_array($var) || is_object($var)) {
$var = print_r($var, true);
}
else {
$var = var_export($var, true);
}
}
else {
$var = var_export($var, true);
}
}


that way, I always know what’s going on with my variables and it’s in the format I like. No confusion between an empty string and FALSE or NULL.