Mastering PHP 7

Using __debugInfo()

The __debugInfo() magic method gets triggered when the var_dump() function is called. By default, the var_dump() function shows all public, protected, and private properties of an object. However, if an object class implements the __debugInfo() magic method, we get to control the output of the var_dump() function. The method does not accept any parameters, and returns an array of key-values to be shown, as per the following synopsis:

array __debugInfo(void)

The following example demonstrates the __debugInfo() method implementation:

<?phpclass User{  public $name = 'John';  public $age = 34;  private $salary = 4200.00;  private $bonus = 680.00;  protected $identifier = 'ABC';  protected $logins = 67; public function __debugInfo() ...