International PHP Conference Berlin 2025

Examples

Below we can see an example of using the error handling capabilities in PHP. We define an error handling function which logs the information into a file (using an XML format), and e-mails the developer if a critical error in the logic happens.

Example #1 Using error handling in a script

<?php
// we will do our own error handling
error_reporting(0);

// user defined error handling function
function userErrorHandler($errno, $errmsg, $filename, $linenum, $vars)
{
// timestamp for the error entry
$dt = date("Y-m-d H:i:s (T)");

// define an assoc array of error string
// in reality the only entries we should
// consider are E_WARNING, E_NOTICE, E_USER_ERROR,
// E_USER_WARNING and E_USER_NOTICE
$errortype = array (
E_ERROR => 'Error',
E_WARNING => 'Warning',
E_PARSE => 'Parsing Error',
E_NOTICE => 'Notice',
E_CORE_ERROR => 'Core Error',
E_CORE_WARNING => 'Core Warning',
E_COMPILE_ERROR => 'Compile Error',
E_COMPILE_WARNING => 'Compile Warning',
E_USER_ERROR => 'User Error',
E_USER_WARNING => 'User Warning',
E_USER_NOTICE => 'User Notice',
E_STRICT => 'Runtime Notice',
E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR => 'Catchable Fatal Error'
);
// set of errors for which a var trace will be saved
$user_errors = array(E_USER_ERROR, E_USER_WARNING, E_USER_NOTICE);

$err = "<errorentry>\n";
$err .= "\t<datetime>" . $dt . "</datetime>\n";
$err .= "\t<errornum>" . $errno . "</errornum>\n";
$err .= "\t<errortype>" . $errortype[$errno] . "</errortype>\n";
$err .= "\t<errormsg>" . $errmsg . "</errormsg>\n";
$err .= "\t<scriptname>" . $filename . "</scriptname>\n";
$err .= "\t<scriptlinenum>" . $linenum . "</scriptlinenum>\n";

if (
in_array($errno, $user_errors)) {
$err .= "\t<vartrace>" . wddx_serialize_value($vars, "Variables") . "</vartrace>\n";
}
$err .= "</errorentry>\n\n";

// for testing
// echo $err;

// save to the error log, and e-mail me if there is a critical user error
error_log($err, 3, "/usr/local/php4/error.log");
if (
$errno == E_USER_ERROR) {
mail("phpdev@example.com", "Critical User Error", $err);
}
}


function
distance($vect1, $vect2)
{
if (!
is_array($vect1) || !is_array($vect2)) {
trigger_error("Incorrect parameters, arrays expected", E_USER_ERROR);
return
NULL;
}

if (
count($vect1) != count($vect2)) {
trigger_error("Vectors need to be of the same size", E_USER_ERROR);
return
NULL;
}

for (
$i=0; $i<count($vect1); $i++) {
$c1 = $vect1[$i]; $c2 = $vect2[$i];
$d = 0.0;
if (!
is_numeric($c1)) {
trigger_error("Coordinate $i in vector 1 is not a number, using zero",
E_USER_WARNING);
$c1 = 0.0;
}
if (!
is_numeric($c2)) {
trigger_error("Coordinate $i in vector 2 is not a number, using zero",
E_USER_WARNING);
$c2 = 0.0;
}
$d += $c2*$c2 - $c1*$c1;
}
return
sqrt($d);
}

$old_error_handler = set_error_handler("userErrorHandler");

// undefined constant, generates a warning
$t = I_AM_NOT_DEFINED;

// define some "vectors"
$a = array(2, 3, "foo");
$b = array(5.5, 4.3, -1.6);
$c = array(1, -3);

// generate a user error
$t1 = distance($c, $b) . "\n";

// generate another user error
$t2 = distance($b, "i am not an array") . "\n";

// generate a warning
$t3 = distance($a, $b) . "\n";

?>

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User Contributed Notes 1 note

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-3
delcroixenator at gmail dot com
2 years ago
For the above "distance" function to work properly, you must correct it as follows:
$d = 0.0; // must be moved before the for loop
$d += $c2*$c2 - $c1*$c1; // must be replaced by $d += ($c2 - $c1) ** 2 ;

Another thing: in the "userErrorHandler" function, the variables $vars and $user_errors are declared but not used.
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