Prestashop LOG: get DUMP of Object and Array - prestashop

Question

I am figuring out how Prestashop 1.7 works and I have some experience with Symfony.
In Symfony development mode [Symfony project url]/_profiler is useful, among other things, to check the dump($someVariable) of variables in a request.
With Prestashop 1.7 in the admin mode it is possible to do [Prestashop project url]/admin[some random chain of chars]/_profiler to display the Symfony _profiler and analyse what's going on in the requests concerning the admin mode.
But if outside the admin mode (in the virtual shop demo mode), [Prestashop project url]/_profiler or [Prestashop project url]/[language value]/_profiler does not display the Symfony _profiler.
I have tried Prestashop own profiler by activating define('_PS_DEBUG_PROFILING_', true); in [prestashop project]/config/defines.inc.php. It displays Prestashop profiler at the bottom of the "virtual shop demo mode" but this one does not include dump($someVariable) that could be used, for development and to understand Prestashop behaviour, in a hookAction[action name].
I've managed to get the Symfony dump($someVariable) with hookDisplay[display name] through the HTML generated but not in a hookAction[action name] which is what I am looking for.
UPDATE
Looking at Prestashop 1.7 code I almost have the feeling that Symfony is only used on the Admin side, because I can see:
$kernel = new AppKernel(_PS_MODE_DEV_?'dev':'prod', _PS_MODE_DEV_); in [Prestashop project url]/admin[some random chain of chars]/index.php but I don't see it in [Prestashop project url]/index.php.

Answer 1

Best solution I've found so far is to create a custom logger similar to the one explained here
I've created file: [Prestashop project]/modules/[my module]/classes/CustomLogger.php
<?php
class CustomLogger {
const DEFAULT_LOG_FILE ="prestashop_system.log";
public static function log($message, $level = 'debug', $fileName = null){
$fileDir = _PS_ROOT_DIR_ . '/log/';
$fileName=self::DEFAULT_LOG_FILE;
if(is_array($message) || is_object($message)){$message = print_r($message, true);}
$formatted_message=$level." -- ".date('Y/m/d - H:i:s').": ".$message."\r\n";
return file_put_contents($fileDir . $fileName, $formatted_message, FILE_APPEND);
}
}
?>
In '[Prestashop project]/modules/[my module]/[my module].php' it is declared at the top:
include_once dirname(__FILE__).'/classes/CustomLogger.php';
And use CustomLogger::log($[some variable]); in your code.