Debugging Helpers

Rhapsody includes a set of global helper functions to simplify debugging and inspecting variables during development. These helpers are available everywhere – in controllers, models, commands, and even in your view files (though not recommended).

Available Helpers

dd(...$vars) – Dump and Die

This is the most commonly used debugging tool. It prints one or more variables in a beautifully formatted way and then stops script execution immediately.

// In a controller
public function index(Request $request): Response
{
    $user = $this->userModel->findById(1);
    dd($user, $request->getBody()); // Execution stops here
}

Output (using Symfony VarDumper) will look like:

App\Models\User {#123 ▼
  +db: PDO {#45 ...}
  #user_id: "1"
  #name: "John Doe"
  #email: "john@example.com"
}
array:2 [▼
  "name" => "Jane"
  "email" => "jane@example.com"
]

d(...$vars) – Dump (without dying)

Same as dd(), but execution continues afterwards. Useful when you want to inspect intermediate values without breaking the page.

$result = processData($input);
d($result); // Dump and continue
// More code runs... 

dump(...$vars) – Alias for VarDumper

If Symfony VarDumper is installed (it comes with filp/whoops), this provides the same pretty output as dd() but without terminating the script. It’s an alias for Symfony\Component\VarDumper\VarDumper::dump().

How It Works

The helpers are defined in core/helpers.php, which is automatically loaded via Composer. They use the Symfony VarDumper component (already a dependency of Whoops) for advanced formatting – including syntax highlighting, expandable arrays/objects, and proper recursion handling.

If VarDumper is not available, the helpers fall back to simple var_dump().

Best Practices

• Never commit dd() or d() to production code. They are strictly for local development.
• Use dd($user) instead of multiple var_dump() calls – it’s cleaner and safer.
• You can pass any number of arguments: dd($user, $posts, $_SERVER);
• In Twig templates, you can use &lcurl;{ dump(user) }} if you add the Twig extension, but it’s not enabled by default. For quick debugging in views, consider dumping from the controller instead.