Debugging file - can I somehow pause processing?

[conjurer]

I am working on a pretty complex piece of code someone wrote in PHP.

In trying to modify it and debug it there are some places that I would like it to pause and show me the variables before continuing.

In some other languages I worked with you could actually put a pause command in the file have it echo out the info you wanted and then when you hit a key you could have it continue on with processing.

Is there any similar debugging functions in PHP that I can use?

Thanks

[maxpup979]

you could probably use a combination of sleep and flush to accomplish your goals.

[conjurer]

I just saw sleep in another post

so where I wanted to pause for ten seconds I would put a
sleep(10);

What does flush do and how would I use that?

[Nixon]

Hi, I know this may sound quite strange but I usually use JavaScript to help me debug my code.

I use the following script for checking variables:

print "<script> alert('$variable'); </script>";

it is quite effective and it pauses the script for as long as you don't click OK. This is a very good method I find, maybe too much hassle for some people though.