Devel's dsm & dpm not working

Question

I am trying to print out the $view object using devel and dsm.

My function in function.php is

function my_theme_views_pre_render(&$view) {

  if ($view->name == 'my-view') {
     dsm('$view'); 
  }
}

But I just get this message below, there is nothing inside the message, the html is

<div class="alert alert-block alert-success" data-thmr="thmr_137">
  <a class="close" data-dismiss="alert" href="#">×</a>
  <h4 class="element-invisible">Status message</h4>
  <ul>
    <li><pre>$view</pre></li>
  </ul>
</div>

Answer 1

You are dsm'ing a string, try dsm($view);

Answer 2

use dpm() instead like written here dsm()