What is "var-dump"

This function will show a structured representation over one or more expressions, including type and value. Arrays and objects are recursively explored with idented values in the structure shown.

Example

<?php
$a = array (1, 2, array ("a", "b", "c"));
var_dump ($a);
?>

The above example will print:

array(3) {
  [0]=>
  int(1)
  [1]=>
  int(2)
  [2]=>
  array(3) {
    [0]=>
    string(1) "a"
    [1]=>
    string(1) "b"
    [2]=>
    string(1) "c"
  }
}

A more complete documentation can be found here.