[VOTE] var_representation() : readable alternative to var_export() View as Markdown

Hi internals,

Voting has started today on https://wiki.php.net/rfc/readable_var_representation
and closes on 2021-02-19.

This RFC proposes introducing a new function var_representation
with the following differences from var_export:

1. var_representation() unconditionally returns a string

2. Use null instead of NULL - the former is recommended by more coding
   guidelines (https://www.php-fig.org/psr/psr-2/).

3. Change the way indentation is done for arrays/objects.
   See ext/standard/tests/general_functions/short_var_export1.phpt
   (e.g. always add 2 spaces, never 3 in objects, and put the array start on the
   same line as the key)

4. Render lists as "[\n 'item1',\n]" rather than "array(\n 0 => 'item1',\n)"

   Always render empty lists on a single line, render multiline by default when there are 1 or more elements

5. Prepend \ to class names so that generated code snippets can be used in
   namespaces without any issues.

6. Support VAR_REPRESENTATION_SINGLE_LINE in $flags.
   This will use a single-line representation for arrays/objects.

7. Escape control characters("\x00"-"\x1f" and "\x7f"(backspace)) inside of double quoted strings
   instead of single quoted strings with unescaped control characters mixed with . "\0" ..

Thanks,
-Tyson