dump() - Javascript equivalent of PHP's print_r() function
The moment I saw the print_r() function of PHP, I fell in love with it. It is a very necessary function and I cannot understand why no other language supports it. JavaScript is one such language. So, I have ported the print_r function to javascript.
/**
* 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.
* Docs: http://www.openjs.com/scripts/others/dump_function_php_print_r.php
*/
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("So long",'s',42,42.13,"Hello World");
var assoc = {
"val" : "New",
"number" : 8,
"theting" : arra
};
alert(dump(assoc));
}
window.onload=init;The result will be returned in the following format...
'val' => "New" 'number' => "8" 'theting' ... '0' => "So long" '1' => "s" '2' => "42" '3' => "42.13" '4' => "Hello World"
You can alert the returned text - if it is small. If there is a large amount of content, put the data into a textarea. This will make reading easier.