sebastian/exporter Documentation

The SebastianBergmann\Exporter\Exporter class provides methods to convert PHP variables into a string format suitable for visualization.

Use the export() method to get a detailed string representation of any variable, including objects, arrays, and simple types.

<?php
use SebastianBergmann\Exporter\Exporter;

$exporter = new Exporter;

// Exporting an Exception object
print $exporter->export(new Exception);

You can add this library as a dependency to your project using Composer.

To add it as a local, per-project dependency, use:

composer require sebastian/exporter

If you only need the library during development (e.g., for running test suites), add it as a development-time dependency:

composer require --dev sebastian/exporter

The export() method supports a wide range of PHP data types:

• Simple types: integers, floats, strings, booleans, NAN, -INF, null, and resources.
• Binary strings: represented in hex format.
• Complex types: nested arrays and objects (including stdClass).
• Circular references: correctly handles arrays or objects that reference themselves.

<?php
use SebastianBergmann\Exporter\Exporter;

$exporter = new Exporter;

// Simple types
print $exporter->export(46);
print $exporter->export(4.0);
print $exporter->export('hello, world!');
print $exporter->export(false);
print $exporter->export(null);

// Complex types (Arrays and Objects)
print $exporter->export(array(array(1,2,3), array("",0,FALSE)));

// Circular references
$array = array();
$array['self'] = &$array;
print $exporter->export($array);