How to Echo or Print an Array in PHP

John on June 04, 2021

In this tutorial, we will learn some different ways of printing/echoing an array in PHP.

Print Data in PHP Array with foreach loop

The easiest way to show data from an array in PHP is to loop through it using a foreach statement and echo each item individually.

$items = ['apple','orange','apricot'];

foreach ($items as $key => $value) {
  echo "Key is: ". $key ." value is: ". $value ."\n";
}

Key is: 0 value is: apple
Key is: 1 value is: orange
Key is: 2 value is: apricot

Display Array in PHP with print_r()

The native PHP print_r() function will show the entire array including index numbers and values without needing to loop through it. Here is a demonstration of how to use print_r():

$items = ['apple','orange','apricot'];

print_r($items);

Array
(
 [0] => apple
 [1] => orange
 [2] => apricot
)

Print More Detailed Array Data with var_dump()

var_dump() is a powerful native PHP function that will output detailed information about any type of data contained in a PHP program, including arrays.

$items = ['apple','orange','apricot'];

var_dump($items);

array(3) {
[0]=>
string(5) "apple"
[1]=>
string(6) "orange"
[2]=>
string(7) "apricot"
}

var_dump() is especially useful if you need to see extra details such as its length and the data type of each element on top of index and value information.