PHP Manual . ... PHP 4 CVS only) var_export -- Outputs or returns a string representation of avariable . mixed var_export ( mixed expression [, int return]) . ... It is similar to var_dump() with the exception that the returned representation is valid PHP code. ... pre> <?php $a = array (1, 2, array ("a", "b", "c")); var_export ($a); /* output: array ( 0 => 1, 1 => 2, 2 => array ( 0 => 'a', 1 => 'b', 2 => 'c', ), ) */ $b = 3.1; $v = var_export($b, TRUE); echo $v; /* output: 3.1 */ ?> </pre> . ...