echo '<pre>';
print_r($foo);
echo '</pre>';

That works just fine, but you can shorten it up by passing true to print_r()‘s second parameter, the $return flag, and mixing it in with your echo statements. What this does is tells print_r() to return the human-readable variable data instead of printing it to the screen right away.

echo '<pre>' . print_r($foo, true) . '</pre>';

Earth-shattering code breakthrough? Absolutely (not). However, it does turn three lines of code into one and makes it quicker (for me, anyway) to write quick debugging statements and move them around easier.

As an added bonus, you can “queue up” a bunch of print_r()‘s by capturing their output in a variable and then echo’ing it just once.

$debug = print_r($foo, true);
$debug .= print_r($bar, true);
echo '<pre>' . $debug . '</pre>';

Voila, shorter debugging statements that are easier to work with.