A silly little utility for pretty printing multidimensional arrays.

tree_r.php

<?php

/**
 * Recursively print out a multidimensional array
 * prettily. Don't use the `$prefix` parameter.
 *
 * @param array  $array  The array to print
 * @param string $prefix The prefix (internal)
 *
 * @return string The nice tree
 */
function tree_r(array $array, $prefix = '')
{
    // Determine final key
    $last_key = end(array_keys($array));
    $buffer = "";

    //var_dump($prefix);
    foreach ($array as $key => $value) {
        $last = $key == $last_key;

        // If its an array, recurse
        if (is_array($value)) {
            // Buffer the "header"
            $buffer .= sprintf(
                "%s%s--+ %s\n",
                $prefix,
                $last ? '`' : '|',
                $key
            );

            // Buffer the subtree
            $buffer .= tree_r(
                $value,
                $prefix . sprintf('%s  ', $last ? ' ' : '|')
            );
        } else {
            // Pretty print the leaf node
            $buffer .= sprintf(
                "%s%s- %s\n",
                $prefix,
                $last ? '`' : '|',
                $value
            );
        }
    }

    // Return the buffer
    return $buffer;
}