What are the differences between dpm() and dsm()?

Question

What are the differences between dpm() and dsm()?

Answer 1

dpm() prints a variable to the ‘message’ area of the page using drupal_set_message(). The output and compact and less likely to break the layout of your page.

From the devel docs:

A note from the devel module: dsm() is a legacy function that was poorly named; use dpm() instead, since the 'p' maps to 'print_r'.

I think we should trust the devel folks on that one.

Answer 2

dsm() is legacy function. It's a call to dpm() as it is, so you should use dpm().