<p>So what I'm looking for here is something like PHP's <a href="http://us2.php.net/print_r" rel="noreferrer">print_r</a> function.</p>

<p>This is so I can debug my scripts by seeing what's the state of the object in question.</p>

You can use the "dir()" function to do this.
```
```
>>> import sys
>>> dir(sys)
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__name__', '__stderr__', '__stdin__', '__stdo
t__', '_current_frames', '_getframe', 'api_version', 'argv', 'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder
, 'call_tracing', 'callstats', 'copyright', 'displayhook', 'dllhandle', 'exc_clear', 'exc_info'
 'exc_type', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'getcheckinterval', 'getdefault
ncoding', 'getfilesystemencoding', 'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount', 'getwindowsversion', 'he
version', 'maxint', 'maxunicode', 'meta_path', 'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_
ache', 'platform', 'prefix', 'ps1', 'ps2', 'setcheckinterval', 'setprofile', 'setrecursionlimit
, 'settrace', 'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdout', 'subversion', 'version', 'version_info', 'warnoption
', 'winver']
>>>
```
```
Another useful feature is help.
```
```
>>> help(sys)
Help on built-in module sys:

NAME
    sys

FILE
    (built-in)

MODULE DOCS
    http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-sys.html

DESCRIPTION
    This module provides access to some objects used or maintained by the
    interpreter and to functions that interact strongly with the interpreter.

    Dynamic objects:

    argv -- command line arguments; argv[0] is the script pathname if known
```
```