Useful functions to include in your theme functions file.

functions.php

/**
 * Dumping a variable surrounded with <pre> tag.
 * @param  object  $var the variable to dump
 * @param  boolean $die wether to die() after printing the output
 * @return null
 */
function d($var, $exit = false) {
	echo "<pre dir='ltr'>";
	ob_start();
	if(is_array($var)) {
		echo "(".count($var).") ";
		print_r($var);
	}
	else {
		var_dump($var);
	}
	$a = ob_get_contents();
	ob_end_clean();
	echo htmlspecialchars($a,ENT_QUOTES);
	echo "</pre>";
	if($exit != false)
		die();
}

// remove the generator html tag, which displaying the WordPress version!
add_filter('the_generator', 'the_generator_filter');
function the_generator_filter() {
	return '';
}