This can be done easily in PHP. The language provides 2 functions that are useful in this case
is_object
can detect if a variable is an object. It returns true if the given variable is an object.
if(is_object($var)){
echo "Object";
} else {
echo "Not an object";
}

is_array
checks whether a variable is an array or not. It returns true if the given variable is an array, otherwise, it returns false.
if (is_array($var))
echo 'This is an array....';
else
echo 'This is not an array....';
PHP Readable var_dump is a small tool that can format the display of an array or an object. It is not perfect but it can still show a nice output.