WP Debugging vs Variable Inspector

Variable Inspector allows you to easily inspect your PHP $variables in a visually clean manner at a central dashboard in wp-admin. It aims to be an easy and useful enough dev and debug tool. It provides a single-line code to inspect your variable (see “How to Use” below). Nothing is shown to site visitors nor being output on the frontend, and the $variable content is nicely formatted for review using var_dump(), var_export() and print_r() on the inspector dashboard in wp-admin. It’s a real time-saver for scenarios where Xdebug or even something like Ray is not ideal or simply an overkill. For example, when coding on a non-local environment via tools like Code Snippets, WPCodeBox, Scripts Organizer or Advanced Scripts. Additionally, because it is a regular WordPress plugin, you simply install, activate and use without the need for complicated configuration. What Users Say “Huge time-saver when working with PHP variables.” ~Jeff Starr “Works great! Love this thing.” ~Josh “Every developer need it. You can debug easily every variable.” ~Pexle Chris “All I need. Enough to test the function of snippets. Works flawless.” ~@tesig “It does what it does very well, and doesn’t try to do everything.” ~@swb1 How to Use Simply place the following line anywhere in your code after the $variable_name you’d like to inspect: do_action( 'inspect', [ 'variable_name', $variable_name ] ); If you’d like to record the originating PHP file and line number, append the PHP magic constants __FILE__ and __LINE__ as follows. do_action( 'inspect', [ 'variable_name', $variable_name, __FILE__, __LINE__ ] ); This would help you locate and clean up the inspector lines once you’re done debugging. Give Back A nice review would be great! Give feedback and help improve future versions. Github repo to contribute code. Sponsor my work with as little as USD 1 monthly or one-time. PRO Version If you need something more versatile for larger, more complex projects, these PRO features might come in handy: vi( $variable ) inspector to replace the do_action() above and automatically includes the file path and line number. Or, use vis( $variable_name, ‘variable_name’ ) when inspecting in/via code snippets plugins (Code Snippets, WPCodeBox, Scripts Organizer, etc.) or custom code module of page builders (Bricks, Oxygen Builder, etc.) dump_print_r and dump_print_tree viewers: both viewers combines var_dump and print_r, with the later allowing for collapsing and expanding data nodes, which is especially useful for inspecting long and complex arrays and objects. kint viewer: an advanced viewer with table view for multi-dimensional arrays, node access path info, capability to search inside variables, pop-up window viewing and advanced info for your complex objects, e.g. available methods and static class properties. Categorize and filter results by color. This, for example, allows you to categorize $variables according to which stage they’re in inside your code. Add counter or notes to inspection results. Another way to tag $variables and provide context for the inspection results. Search filter: easily find certain $variables by name and type. View up to 250 results. The free version is limited to 25 results. Individual and bulk deletion of results. Easily clean up your inspection dashboard from obsolete results you no longer need to reference. You can also select certain variables in bulk. Click here to see a screenshot of the PRO version or see below in the screenshots section. What PRO Users Say “I was looking for a tool like this for a while. Great solution! Love this thing.” ~Marco Frodl “I have used it for a couple of days and it has helped me a lot to go faster when debugging.”” ~Javier Sor “I’ve only just started using it and it really helps me get my head around the code of a plugin I’m trying to customise” ~Tim Dickinson “I’ve been testing it and I really like it. It helps a lot and saves a lot of time in development. It’s also compatible with Oxygen, Bricks, WPCodeBox, etc.” ~Juan Jose Gonzalez, oxygenados.com “I just bought this! Great plugin – thank you for the hard work!” ~Tim Dickinson “I used to use Ray locally, I’m also using Xdebug a lot .. if I need to debug some variables, I use Query Monitor. I bought this, because the UI is nice, it has all those good features from both worlds.” ~Peter Morvay “Worth the buy! It is really good… great for debugging. Specially, when you want to write custom code or understand some snippet ChatGPT gave you.” ~John D Get the PRO version now! Check These Out Too Admin and Site Enhancements helps you to easily enhance various admin workflows and site aspects while replacing multiple plugins doing it. System Dashboard: Central dashboard to monitor various WordPress components, processes and data, including the server. Debug Log Manager: Log PHP, database and JavaScript errors via WP_DEBUG with one click. Conveniently create, view, filter and clear the debug.log file. WordPress Newsboard: The latest news, articles, podcasts and videos from 100+ WordPress-focused sources.

This plugin sets the following debug constants in wp-config.php on plugin activation and removes them on plugin deactivation. Any errors will result in a PHP Exception being thrown. Debug constants per Debugging in WordPress. Default settings: define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true ); define( 'SCRIPT_DEBUG', true ); define( 'SAVEQUERIES', true ); @ini_set( ‘display_errors’, 1 ); is set when the plugin is active. WP_DEBUG is set to true when the plugin is first run, thereafter it can be turned off in the Settings. The Settings page allows the user to set the following. define( 'WP_DEBUG', true ); // Default on initial plugin installation. define( 'WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false ); // Default when not declared is true. define( 'WP_DISABLE_FATAL_ERROR_HANDLER', true ); // WordPress 5.2 WSOD Override. When the plugin is deactivated best efforts are made to re-add pre-existing constants to their former state. When the plugin is activated the default settings and any saved settings are restored. This plugin uses the wp-cli/wp-config-transformer command for writing constants to wp-config.php. Debug Quick Look from Andrew Norcross is included with this plugin to assist in reading the debug.log file. If you already have this plugin installed you should delete it when WP Debugging is not active. Query Monitor and Debug Bar plugins are optional dependencies to aid in debugging and troubleshooting. The notice for installation will recur 45 days after being dismissed. If you have a non-standard location for your wp-config.php file you can use the filter wp_debugging_config_path to return the file path for your installation. The filter wp_debugging_add_constants allows the user to add constants to wp-config.php. The filter returns an array where the key is the name of the constant and the value is an array of data containing the value as a string and a boolean to indicate whether or not the value should be passed without quotes. $my_constants = [ 'my_test_constant' => [ 'value' => 'abc123', 'raw' => false, ], 'another_test_constant' => [ 'value' => 'true' ], ]; The value option contains the constant’s value as a string. The raw option means that instead of placing the value inside the config as a string it will become unquoted. The default is true. Set as false for non-boolean values. Example: add_filter( 'wp_debugging_add_constants', function( $added_constants ) { $my_constants = [ 'my_test_constant' => [ 'value' => '124xyz', 'raw' => false, ], 'another_test_constant' => [ 'value' => 'true' ], ]; return array_merge( $added_constants, $my_constants ); }, 10, 1 ); This will create the following constants. define( 'MY_TEST_CONSTANT', '124xyz' ); define( 'ANOTHER_TEST_CONSTANT', true ); Development PRs are welcome against the develop branch on GitHub.