On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 13:09, Frank Wiegand wrote: > IMHO its not PHP's job to produce HTML output for debugging purposes.
Well, then, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. IMO, PHP's job is to work in a way that is most useful to the developer. Since most developers use PHP in web projects, it makes sense, I think, that PHP's debug output is suitable to that environment. > > I'd prefer the PEAR package, because: > > * You have more control about the output layout (Var_Dump.php uses skins). > * There are (as said) three functions in PHP that do nearly all the same. > * Using the package is not more complicated than using var_dump. > It's a two liner (but you can use auto_prepend_file). A two-liner is twice as many lines as a one-liner :-) . In a debugging situation, you often add and remove var_dump()'s quickly and all over the place while hunting down a bug. Having to worry about an extra step uselessly complicates things, in my view. If using the built-in functions is not any more complicated than using PEAR, then why not get rid of them at all? Because they are useful, of course. Except that in their current form they are less useful than they could be. > Using Var_Dump makes your script slower, but (high-)speed doesn't matter > while debugging PHP scripts. Agreed. But high development speed does matter, and having to use PEAR doesn't help you there. In any case, the discussion is sort of moot, since the patch won't be applied. I'll just use it for my internal purposes, and it's in the archives for anyone who may find it useful. Cheers, Marco -- Marco Tabini President Marco Tabini & Associates, Inc. 28 Bombay Avenue Toronto, ON M3H 1B7 Canada Phone: (416) 630-6202 Fax: (416) 630-5057 Web: http://www.tabini.ca -- PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
