This is the first article in a series about the new features in Xdebug 2.3, which was first released on February 22nd.

One of the new features relates to one of the first things that I added in the original Xdebug: making the var_dump() output "pretty". Xdebug replaces PHP's standard var_dump() function with its own version, as long as the xdebug.overload_var_dump setting is not set to 0.

Which means that instead of:

array(4) { [0]=> int(42) [1]=> string(6) "string" [2]=> bool(true) [3]=> float(3.1415926535898) }

You get:

Nothing new so far.

Xdebug 2.3 enhances the overloading of var_dump() with the inclusion of the file name and line number where var_dump() is called at. This has been a long standing feature request.

You can include this information, by setting xdebug.overload_var_dump to 2. If the xdebug.overload_var_dump setting is set to 2, the overloaded var_dump() output now looks like:

As you can see, the file name and line number of where var_dump() were called are prepended to the output.

An already existing setting, xdebug.file_link_format, allows you to format file name and line number information so that Xdebug generates a link. This same setting is also respected by the inclusion of the file name and line number in the enhanced var_dump() output. Setting xdebug.file_link_format to xdebug://%f:%l will then link the file name to xdebug:///home/httpd/html/test/xdebug/overload-var-dump.php:4. If we look at this as an image, we will see:

In a future version of Xdebug, it is likely that I will either wrap in the file name/line number information in the overloaded var_dump(), or change the default value of the setting to 2.

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Other parts in this series:

• Xdebug 2.3: Enhanced xdebug_debug_zval()

• Xdebug 2.3: Munging errors

• Xdebug 2.3: Improvements to Debugging

• Xdebug 2.3: Improvements to Tracing