can you describe the hypothetical "table_dump" feature 😕 or what "existing functionality" do you mean?

In general if you want to use VarDumper + Console table; see #28898, that should help using dumps in table cells.

I don't need the dumps inside the table cells, I need to dump the array of data itself as a table like in the picture.

Basically I want to be able to run this code from here

public function handle()
{
    $headers = ['Name', 'Awesomeness Level'];

    $data = [
        [
            'name' => 'Jim',
            'awesomeness_level' => 'Meh',
        ],
        [
            'name' => 'Conchita',
            'awesomeness_level' => 'Fabulous',
        ],
    ];

    /* Note: the following would work as well:
    $data = [
        ['Jim', 'Meh'],
        ['Conchita', 'Fabulous']
    ];
    */

    $this->table($headers, $data); // <---- specifically this line, but perhaps renamed as dump_table($headers, $data)
}

but I need it to work in the phpunit and tinker context, like how dump currently works in all three contexts. The contents of the cells is only null/numbers/strings for my purposes.

I'm pretty sure the code already exists in https://github.com/symfony/console/blob/master/Helper/Table.php but I can't figure out how to instantiate that class.

oh got ya.. basically a horizontal display when doing dump($array) (which could indeed could be called like dump_table or so).

Im not sure this is a common enough feature for debugging :/ IMHO dump($array) as-is should be OK.

dump($array) makes tabular data that could easily fit on one screen take up 20 screens worth of scrolling.

yes, but the problem may shift to horiztonal scrolling instead.

Gave it some thought, and i tend to be 👎 for array structures to be interpreted as tabular data (and rendered as such). That's outside the VarDumper scope IMHO, which should just dump the array conform its structure.

I just want to know how to use the code that already exists.

you can render a table, as per https://symfony.com/doc/current/components/console/helpers/table.html

for $output i.e. StreamOutput or BufferedOutput can be used standalone, e.g.

$output = new StreamOutput(fopen('php://stdout', 'w'));

thanks, this worked:

$output = new \Symfony\Component\Console\Output\StreamOutput(fopen('php://stdout', 'w'));
$table = new Symfony\Component\Console\Helper\Table($output);
$table->setRows([[1,2],[3,4]]);
$table->render();