PHP: Write output of var_dump() to string

With using the function print_r() you can do what you want. You only have to pass "true" as a second parameter to the function and print_r() will no longer print out the results directly. Instead, it will return the result as a string:

$arr = array(1,2,3);
$str = print_r($arr, true);

Please note that the information provided by print_r() is not as detailed as the information coming from var_dump(), but perhaps, this can nevertheless help you.
2016-06-09 at 09:21

If you want to have exactly the same output as provided by var_dump(), you can use output buffering:

ob_start();
var_dump($someVar);
$str = ob_get_clean();

With ob_start(), the output buffering is started. After that, the output of your script will no longer be sent to the browser. Instead, it is cached. Each output of each command you will execute after ob_start(), will be stored to the buffer. So, for example, also with the output of var_dump(). Afterwards, you can read out to the stored buffer with ob_get_clean() and you can save it to any variable.

Theoretically, you can write your own function to handle this:

function var_dump_tostring($var) {
  ob_start();
  var_dump($var);
  return ob_get_clean();
}

After declaring this function, you can just call the function with your variable to get the var_dump result as string.
2016-06-09 at 14:24

Alternatively, I also want to suggest the function var_export. This function is working similar to print_r and it returns valid PHP code describing the passed variable.

$arr = array(1,2,3);
$str = var_export($arr, true);

Similar to print_r, you can also pass "true" as a second parameter to get the result returned as string.
2016-06-10 at 10:44