How to stop or pause php execution?

Question

I want to do some basic debugging with print_r.

When PHP hits that line I want it to stop or end whatever people usually do, so I can see the output.

Answer 1

// if you want a one liner:
die(print_r($stuff, true ));

You'd really enjoy a proper debugger though

Answer 2

For stopping execution in PHP, you have for example die and exit.

For advanced debugging, use tools such as XDebug.

Or sleep: sleep(30); for a 30 second delay.

Answer 3

Here:

print_r($whatever);    
exit();

Answer 4

die("Script Stopped");

This will end execution of code and echo the message you put between the quotations - this can be a string or an integer you need to debug, I use it often when debugging. Half-split works well, put var_dumps halfway through your code, put a die at the end, find which half is going wrong, split that in half, etc, until you get to a point that you can logically guess where the error is and start debugging the syntax/etc.