Print an array the way it is written in code?

Question

I'm generating localization files in Laravel that look something like this:

<?php
return [
  'hello' => 'world',
  'foo' => 'bar',
];

Just a normal array, nothing fancy. I'm looking for a way to do this, I've looked at the serialize method but it doesn't fit my needs. Is there a way to do this that I'm not aware of?

Also note that my array only consists of string keys and values. Since this is localization work, some strings are UTF-8.

Answer 1

var_export works well for this, it will pretty-print your array a lot like the format you specified above

echo(var_export($array_variable, true));