What is the JavaScript equivalent of var_dump or print_r in PHP?

Most common way:

console.log(object);

However I must mention JSON.stringify which is useful to dump variables in non-browser scripts:

console.log( JSON.stringify(object) );

The JSON.stringify function also supports built-in prettification as pointed out by Simon Zyx.

Example:

var obj = {x: 1, y: 2, z: 3};

console.log( JSON.stringify(obj, null, 2) ); // spacing level = 2

The above snippet will print:

{
  "x": 1,
  "y": 2,
  "z": 3
}

On caniuse.com you can view the browsers that support natively the JSON.stringify function: http://caniuse.com/json

You can also use the Douglas Crockford library to add JSON.stringify support on old browsers: https://github.com/douglascrockford/JSON-js

Docs for JSON.stringify: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/JSON/stringify

I hope this helps :-)

I wrote this JS function dump() to work like PHP's var_dump(). To show the contents of the variable in an alert window: dump(variable) To show the contents of the variable in the web page: dump(variable, 'body') To just get a string of the variable: dump(variable, 'none')

/* repeatString() returns a string which has been repeated a set number of times */
function repeatString(str, num) {
    out = '';
    for (var i = 0; i < num; i++) {
        out += str;
    }
    return out;
}

/*
dump() displays the contents of a variable like var_dump() does in PHP. dump() is
better than typeof, because it can distinguish between array, null and object.
Parameters:
    v:              The variable
    howDisplay:     "none", "body", "alert" (default)
    recursionLevel: Number of times the function has recursed when entering nested
                    objects or arrays. Each level of recursion adds extra space to the
                    output to indicate level. Set to 0 by default.
Return Value:
    A string of the variable's contents
Limitations:
    Can't pass an undefined variable to dump(). 
    dump() can't distinguish between int and float.
    dump() can't tell the original variable type of a member variable of an object.
    These limitations can't be fixed because these are *features* of JS. However, dump()
*/
function dump(v, howDisplay, recursionLevel) {
    howDisplay = (typeof howDisplay === 'undefined') ? "alert" : howDisplay;
    recursionLevel = (typeof recursionLevel !== 'number') ? 0 : recursionLevel;

    var vType = typeof v;
    var out = vType;

    switch (vType) {
        case "number":
        /* there is absolutely no way in JS to distinguish 2 from 2.0
           so 'number' is the best that you can do. The following doesn't work:
           var er = /^[0-9]+$/;
           if (!isNaN(v) && v % 1 === 0 && er.test(3.0)) {
               out = 'int';
           }
        */
        break;
    case "boolean":
        out += ": " + v;
        break;
    case "string":
        out += "(" + v.length + '): "' + v + '"';
        break;
    case "object":
        //check if null
        if (v === null) {
            out = "null";
        }
        //If using jQuery: if ($.isArray(v))
        //If using IE: if (isArray(v))
        //this should work for all browsers according to the ECMAScript standard:
        else if (Object.prototype.toString.call(v) === '[object Array]') {
            out = 'array(' + v.length + '): {\n';
            for (var i = 0; i < v.length; i++) {
                out += repeatString('   ', recursionLevel) + "   [" + i + "]:  " +
                    dump(v[i], "none", recursionLevel + 1) + "\n";
            }
            out += repeatString('   ', recursionLevel) + "}";
        }
        else {
            //if object
            let sContents = "{\n";
            let cnt = 0;
            for (var member in v) {
                //No way to know the original data type of member, since JS
                //always converts it to a string and no other way to parse objects.
                sContents += repeatString('   ', recursionLevel) + "   " + member +
                    ":  " + dump(v[member], "none", recursionLevel + 1) + "\n";
                cnt++;
            }
            sContents += repeatString('   ', recursionLevel) + "}";
            out += "(" + cnt + "): " + sContents;
        }
        break;
    default:
        out = v;
        break;
    }

    if (howDisplay == 'body') {
        var pre = document.createElement('pre');
        pre.innerHTML = out;
        document.body.appendChild(pre);
    }
    else if (howDisplay == 'alert') {
        alert(out);
    }

    return out;
}

The var_dump equivalent in JavaScript? Simply, there isn't one.

But, that doesn't mean you're left helpless. Like some have suggested, use Firebug (or equivalent in other browsers), but unlike what others suggested, don't use console.log when you have a (slightly) better tool console.dir:

console.dir(object)

Prints an interactive listing of all properties of the object. This looks identical to the view that you would see in the DOM tab.

Most modern browsers have a console in their developer tools, useful for this sort of debugging.

console.log(myvar);

Then you will get a nicely mapped out interface of the object/whatever in the console.

Check out the console documentation for more details.