In javascript, figuring things out is not to bad. For almost everything, I can just use console.log(whatever) and spit out the data I’m trying to figure out right there in the browser. With PHP is more difficult. You can var_dump() many things. You can improve on that using print_r to make those gnarly1 objects and nested arrays legible. But for the longest time, I had no good path for logging the information that happens in function that weren’t visible anywhere. I resorted at one point to writing the data using insert_post. Look at the madness below. Then, just the other morning, I was feeling particularly unhappy with this pattern and happened upon this post. This little snippet is now my best friend.2 I can staple that to the bottom of plugins/themes in development and then use write_log() in any number of useful ways. The author mentions using write_log( __LINE__ ); to log if the line in a particular place is every reached and there are many other ways you can tweak this to do what you need. It’s just so nice now to be able to consistently log data from anything in PHP land to a designation location. It is times like this that I feel bolstered in my opinion that I don’t know anything about programming. It’s also that […]