As developers, we all make mistakes. Whether it’s forgetting a semicolon, using the wrong variable name, or passing the incorrect argument to a function, errors are a part of the programming process. In PHP, we categorize errors into three types: warnings, notices, and errors.

  1. Warnings and Notices: These are minor errors that don’t stop the program execution. PHP will display a message indicating the issue, but the program will continue running unaffected.

  2. Errors: Unlike warnings and notices, errors terminate the execution of the program. When an error occurs, PHP will provide a message explaining the problem.

The question is, where do these error messages appear? Well, it depends on your PHP configuration. During development, it is common to display PHP errors on the web page itself or log them to an error log file. This allows developers to catch and fix errors as early as possible.

On the other hand, in a production environment, you don’t want to expose error messages to end users. However, it’s still crucial to log these errors for troubleshooting purposes. To accomplish this, you can configure PHP to write error messages to an error log file.

The PHP configuration file, known as php.ini, determines how PHP runs and handles errors. The location of this file varies depending on your server setup. To find the php.ini file’s location, you can create a PHP file with the following code and run it in your browser:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Once you execute this code, you’ll see the path to the php.ini file under the “Loaded Configuration File” section. For example, it might be located at /Applications/MAMP/bin/php/php8.1.0/conf/php.ini.

Keep in mind that the phpinfo() function generates a wealth of other useful information as well.

If you’re using MAMP, you can find the php.ini file in the MAMP application folder. Navigate to bin/php, then choose your specific PHP version (e.g., 8.1.0). Inside the version-specific folder, you’ll find the conf directory containing the php.ini file.

Open the php.ini file with a text editor. This file includes a comprehensive list of PHP settings, each accompanied by inline documentation. In this context, we’re particularly interested in the display_errors setting.

To disable error display in a production environment, set display_errors to Off, as indicated in the documentation above the setting.

Please note that after setting display_errors to Off, errors will no longer be visible on the website. Instead, they will be logged in an error log file, such as php_error.log. The location of this file varies depending on your server configuration. You can specify the desired location for the error log file in the php.ini file.

To add custom information to the error log, you can use the error_log() function:

error_log('test');

It is common to utilize a dedicated logger service, such as Monolog, to handle errors effectively.

By following these best practices, you can effectively handle errors in your PHP applications, ensuring smooth execution while maintaining error logs for debugging and analysis.