tyler36 / ddev-php-dumper

Collect and manage 'dump' information in Docker Desktop

ddev-php-dumper

• What is ddev-php-dumper?
• What does this add-on do?
• Requirements
• Installation
  • Docker "PHP Dump" setup
    • Troubleshooting
  • "var-dump server" setup
• Usage
  • Disable the service
• Reference

What is ddev-php-dumper?

"ddev-php-dumper" is a helper addon that redirects Symfony dump output to a server. Dumped data will no longer display inline on your site, but instead, be displayed in the terminal (var-dumper-server) or PHP Dumper, a Desktop Docker extension.

Using PHP Dumper offers several benefits:

• auto-expand dumps to a specific level
• filter dumps by time frame
• pin dumps
• compare 2 dump

What does this add-on do?

1. Sets environment variables to redirect "var_dump" output to PHP Dumper Docker extention.
2. Includes helper function to start a PHP dump server.
3. Adds Docker host as an extra host in the web container.

Requirements

• DDEV
• symfony/var-dumper Requirements:

If you project is based on Symfony (such as Laravel, Drupal), it may already include 'var-dumper'.

Installation

1. Install var-dumper, if you project does not already include it.

   composer require --dev symfony/var-dumper

2. Install ddev-php-dump addon and restart to activate the addon.

   ddev get tyler36/ddev-php-dumper
   ddev restart

Next, you need to decide what dump server to use.

Docker "PHP Dump" setup

Requirements:

• Docker Desktop
• PHP Dumper extension

1. Install the PHP Dumper extension via Docker Desktop GUI or using the following command.

   docker extension install artifision/php-dumper-docker-extension:latest

2. Create or update ./.ddev/.env with:

   VAR_DUMPER_SERVER="host.docker.internal"

3. Restart DDEV

   ddev restart

4. Open PHP-dumper panel in Docker Desktop.

Example output:

Troubleshooting

Visit the test page, http://localhost:9913/dump to check if the extension can correctly receive data.

"var-dump server" setup

1. Open a terminal window and to start the dump server.

   ddev dumper

2. The server should start and be listening on tcp://localhost:9912

Using a dump() command in your project will display the output.

Example output:

Usage

• Use dump() the command in your project.

The output will be redirect and displayed in your configured server.

Disable the service

To disable the service:

ddev service disable php-dumper
ddev restart

To re-enable the service:

ddev service enable php-dumper
ddev restart

Reference

For more information, see The Dump Server.

Contributed and maintained by @tyler36