How to Print an Array in PHP

Total time: 1 minute

Updated: November 19th, 2020

Printing an array in PHP is one of the most basic and necessary functions. Here are a few tricks and tools to make it easier.

PHP

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The print_r command prints human readable information about a variable and it is quite useful for arrays. You can use it like this:

$names = array('Lloyd', 'Harry');
print_r($names);

and the browser will give you:

Array([0] => Lloyd [1] => Harry)

Nest the print_r function inside of the <pre> tags in order to get more readable output, like this:

echo "<pre>";
print_r( $names );
echo "</pre>";

and that will give you this:

Array
(
    [0] => Lloyd
    [1] => Harry
)

If you're working on a large project, you might consider writing a custom function and auto-loading or including it onto every page:

function print_rx($arr) {
    echo "<pre>"; print_r($arr); echo "</pre>";
}

Make use of 'print_r'