What debugging tools or techniques can be used to better understand the flow of a recursive function in PHP?

When debugging a recursive function in PHP, one helpful technique is to use print statements or var_dump to output the current state of the function at each recursive call. This can help you visualize the flow of the function and understand how it progresses through each recursive step. Additionally, using a debugger tool like Xdebug can provide more detailed insights into the function's execution. 

function recursiveFunction($n) {
    // Output current state
    echo "Current value of n: " . $n . "\n";
    
    // Base case
    if ($n <= 0) {
        return;
    }
    
    // Recursive call
    recursiveFunction($n - 1);
}

// Call the recursive function
recursiveFunction(5);

Keywords

Xdebug recursion stack trace debugging call stack

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