README

A professional-grade debugging library for PHP that provides a high-fidelity visual representation of variables, tailored for modern web development environments.

Installation

composer require aksoyih/better-dump

Usage

// Dump and continue execution
bd($variable);

// Dump and die (stop execution)
bdd($variable);

// Labeled dump
bd($user, 'User Object');

Global Error Handling

BetterDump can act as your application's global error and exception handler, providing a beautiful "Blue Screen of Death" when your code crashes, even if display_errors is off in php.ini.

use Aksoyih\ErrorHandler;

(new ErrorHandler())->register();

// Now even fatal errors or unhandled exceptions will be rendered by BetterDump
throw new Exception("Oops!");

JSON Output Mode

For debugging API responses, you can switch to JSON mode. This will output the dump as a formatted JSON response with Content-Type: application/json headers.

use Aksoyih\BetterDump;

// Enable JSON mode
BetterDump::outputJson(true);

bd($data);

Laravel Integration

BetterDump comes with a zero-config Service Provider for Laravel.

1. Auto-Discovery: The package is automatically discovered.
2. Configuration: It respects your config('app.editor') or config('ignition.editor') settings.
3. Safety: It automatically disables itself in production environments based on APP_ENV.

To publish the configuration (Optional):

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Aksoyih\Integrations\Laravel\BetterDumpServiceProvider"

Configuration

You can configure the editor to open files in. The default is phpstorm.

use Aksoyih\BetterDump;

// Supported editors: 'vscode', 'phpstorm'
BetterDump::setEditor('vscode');

You can also set a local root directory for editor links. This is useful when your runtime paths are relative or inside a container.

use Aksoyih\BetterDump;

BetterDump::setRootDirectory('/path/to/your/project');

Production Safety

BetterDump is disabled by default in production environments (APP_ENV=production or APP_ENV=prod) to prevent accidental leakage of sensitive data.

To force enable it in production:

use Aksoyih\BetterDump;

BetterDump::allowProduction(true);

Keyboard Shortcuts

Features

• Beautiful UI: Modern, zero-dependency interface with Light/Dark mode support.
• Search: Built-in real-time fuzzy search to filter keys and values.
• Code Snippet Preview: Automatically displays the code surrounding an error or dump location with syntax highlighting.
• Smart Helpers: bd() (Dump & Continue) and bdd() (Dump & Die).
• Stack Trace: View the full execution history leading to the dump.
• LLM-Ready Copy: Copy the dump output as clean JSON with context, perfect for pasting into ChatGPT or Claude.
• Deep Linking: Clickable file paths that open directly in your IDE (PhpStorm/VSCode).
• Image Previews: Hover over image URLs to see a thumbnail.
• Recursion Detection: Safely handles circular references.
• Performance Metrics: Shows execution time and memory usage.

License

MIT License