Error handling

[tony.willson]

We struggle to come up with a decent error handling function. I thought that I use a global variable $live to easily make a switch from testing to live. I will keep the function in an include file.
I kind of got there to print a "user-friendly" message when the site is live, but it messes up the whole page layout. Don't how to print the error message in the content area. How would I adjust my error handler and what would I add to "<?php require_once $content; ?>"?
My error handler:
<?php
/*-- start output buffering--*/
ob_start();
/*-- live site --*/
$live=TRUE;
/*-- error handling function giving back error number, the actual message, the error file, the error line and the variables (what are variable in this context?) --*/
function my_error_handler ($e_number, $e_message, $e_file, $e_line, $e_vars) {
/*-- make $live global --*/
global $live;
/*-- set error message for testing together --*/
$message="Error in file '$e_file' on line $e_line: $e_message\n";
$message.=print_r($e_vars,1);
/*-- error message for live site should not give any detail about problem, just an apology --*/
if($live){
$user="We apologise for the problems on this page...";
/*-- if there are error messages print the standard user message --*/
if ($message==0){echo $user;}else{
/*-- otherwise say 'hi there' --*/
echo ('');}
/*-- do it only once as user should not see the apology more than once --*/
exit();
} else {
/*-- if site is in testing print the acual error messages --*/
echo '<div class="error">'.$message.'</div><br/>';
}
}
ob_end_flush();
/*-- as everything is defined now, set the error handler, so it's ready to be used --*/
set_error_handler('my_error_handler');
?>
Also, in the bit "if ($message==0)" I would have thought that comparing $message to 1 would have printed the user-friendly error message (as I thought 1 means that there is one or more error message).

Any help appreciated.

[speed]

See the thread error handler as your PHP is wrong.

As for printing in the content area, the error message will always be output at the point it occurs, unless you capture the page template along with any good data and the error(s). You then need to combine and output the result. It's much easier to just output an error page.

After all should an application really continue after an error has occurred? What about knock on effects from the 1st error?

[aaron_s]

I should go ahead and also make two suggestions:

1) Develop a custom exception handler as well.
2) Your LIVE conundrum - why don't you make it based off of the URL or something like that? That is, unless you rewrite the local IP of your testing server to be the exact same as the live... I tend to do it based off of $_SERVER['HOST_NAME'] to determine my environment.