Sending "var_dump" to FireBug console

As you know var_dump() in addition to value show its data type and length.

Is there any way to log its output to FireBug console?

I tried FirePHP and FireLogger but both output only value of a variable (sometimes even incorrect variable value).

Maybe what you need is something like this:

function var2console($var, $name='', $now=false)
{
   if ($var === null)          $type = 'NULL';
   else if (is_bool    ($var)) $type = 'BOOL';
   else if (is_string  ($var)) $type = 'STRING['.strlen($var).']';
   else if (is_int     ($var)) $type = 'INT';
   else if (is_float   ($var)) $type = 'FLOAT';
   else if (is_array   ($var)) $type = 'ARRAY['.count($var).']';
   else if (is_object  ($var)) $type = 'OBJECT';
   else if (is_resource($var)) $type = 'RESOURCE';
   else                        $type = '???';
   if (strlen($name)) {
      str2console("$type $name = ".var_export($var, true).';', $now);
   } else {
      str2console("$type = "      .var_export($var, true).';', $now);
   }
}

function str2console($str, $now=false)
{
   if ($now) {
      echo "<script type='text/javascript'>\n";
      echo "//<![CDATA[\n";
      echo "console.log(", json_encode($str), ");\n";
      echo "//]]>\n";
      echo "</script>";
   } else {
      register_shutdown_function('str2console', $str, true);
   }
}

Usage: var2console($myvar, '$myvar'); or simply var2console($myvar);

It should very rarely be necessary to set the $now parameter to true, causing the immediate output of the <script> tag. The advantage of using register_shutdown_function() is that you don't need to pay attention to "where you are" in the HTML.

The json_encode() preserves all characters in the transfer from PHP to JavaScript. The only caveat is about encoding: json_encode() only works with UTF-8 (which is the recommended encoding in most cases, anyway). You may need something like utf8_encode() or mb_convert_encoding() if you use a different encoding (or rather, you may consider switching to UTF-8).

The output to Firebug's console is simply the output of var_export(), preceded by the type of the variable, including the length of strings and the count of arrays, and, optionally, by the name of the variable.

var_export() provides a more readable output than var_dump(). If you really need the output of var_dump(), you can use something like this:

function dump2console($var, $name='', $now=false)
{
   ob_start();
   if (strlen($name)) {
      echo "$name =\n";
   }
   var_dump($var);
   $str = ob_get_clean();
   str2console($str, $now);
}

Usage: dump2console($myvar, '$myvar'); or simply dump2console($myvar);

You should avoid circular references (var_dump() detects them a step too late, and var_export() doesn't detect them at all). This is how to do it, e.g., for $GLOBALS:

function globals2console($now=false)
{
   $g = $GLOBALS;
   $g['GLOBALS'] = '(recursion)';
   var2console($g, '$GLOBALS', $now);
}