PHP: error_reporting

User Contributed Notes
error_reporting

rsterbin at stwing dot org
13-Apr-2005 11:52


When called with no arguments, error_reporting() returns the current error level.  A line of the type "if ($errno & error_reporting())" caused me much undue stress, as this behaviour is not explicitly stated in the documentation.



See:

1.135    zeev        Feb 28 1998         * Made error_reporting() with no arguments return the current error reporting level

http://bonsai.php.net/cvslog.cgi?file=php3/functions/basic_functions.c

supergoku123 at hotmail dot com
28-Mar-2005 12:09


Here is a file check without the error then turning back on the error for other mistakes throughout the page.

<?

error_reporting(0);

if(file($filename.".php") == true) {

echo "good";

} else {

echo "<font color=red>False.</font>";

}// End Checking file + Start: error_reporting = true

error_reporting(E_ALL);

?>

phpfanat at yandex dot ru
22-Feb-2005 12:03


If you get a weird mysql warnings like "Warning: mysql_query() [http://www.mysql.com/doc]: Your query requires a full tablescan...", don't look for error_reporting settings - it's set in php.ini.

You can turn it off with

ini_set("mysql.trace_mode","Off");

in your script



And, as of my opinion, it should be NOTICE, not WARNING level.

vdephily at bluemetrix dot com
22-Feb-2005 06:40


Note that E_NOTICE will warn you about uninitialized variables, but assigning a key/value pair counts as initialization, and will not trigger any error :

<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL);



$foo = $bar; //notice : $bar uninitialized



$bar['foo'] = 'hello'; // no notice, although $bar itself has never been initialized (with "$bar = array()" for example)



$bar = array('foobar' => 'barfoo');

$foo = $bar['foobar'] // ok



$foo = $bar['nope'] // notice : no such index

?>

info at darkrealm dot nl
12-Feb-2005 07:28


in reponce to

Fernando Piancastelli note on 13-Dec-2004 10:23 



If the php.ini has display_errors turned of, you can always use the ini_set command to change it at runtime.



ini_set("display_errors","1");



should do the trick nicely.

11-Feb-2005 12:55


Under jjuffermans' note, the editors posted the following:



"Instead of using @ to suppress errors if the file does not exist you should do a conditional include:



if (is_file("nosuchfile.php")) {

 include_once("nosuchfile.php");

}"



This is rather obvious, but has an even more obvious problem: is_file doesn't check on the include_path, which one assumes include_once is highly likely to be using.



While there are any number of kludgy workarounds which can be employed to overcome this problem, it's a structural problem in PHP and should be fixed. Preferably @ should only suppress a file not found error, but not any errors inside the included file if it is found, or failing that at the least is_file or file_exists should have the option to look on the include_path for the file.

Fernando Piancastelli
13-Dec-2004 04:23


The error_reporting() function won't be effective if your display_errors directive in php.ini is set to "Off", regardless of level reporting you set. I had to set



display_errors = On

error_reporting = ~E_ALL



to keep no error reporting as default, but be able to change error reporting level in my scripts.

I'm using PHP 4.3.9 and Apache 2.0.

dnirvine[at]gmail[dot]com
14-Nov-2004 03:21


<?php

# config.ini

# PHP error reporting. supported values are given below.

# 0 - Turn off all error reporting

# 1 - Running errors

# 2 - Running errors + notices

# 3 - All errors except notices and warnings

# 4 - All errors except notices

# 5 - All errors



php_error_reporting=4



# config.ini ends



Setting error_reporting in PHP files would be something like the code below, assuming the function getinivar() returns the variable value from the configuration file.



[code]

// setting PHP error reporting

switch(getinivar('php_error_reporting')) {

case 0: error_reporting(0); break;

case 1: error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE); break;

case 2: error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE | E_NOTICE); break;

case 3: error_reporting(E_ALL ^ (E_NOTICE | E_WARNING)); break;

case 4: error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE); break;

case 5: error_reporting(E_ALL); break;

default:

   error_reporting(E_ALL);

}

[/code]

?>

I'll have to start using this from now on!  Be much easier than having error_reporting(0) and trying to switch to find errors.  Thanks.

ferozzahid [at] usa [dot] com
08-Sep-2004 07:31


To be enable to switch between error_reporting during development and release phases, one can define say 'php_error_reporting' in the main configuration file (ini like file: no PHP) for the application as:



# config.ini

# PHP error reporting. supported values are given below.

# 0 - Turn off all error reporting

# 1 - Running errors

# 2 - Running errors + notices

# 3 - All errors except notices and warnings

# 4 - All errors except notices

# 5 - All errors



php_error_reporting=4



# config.ini ends



Setting error_reporting in PHP files would be something like the code below, assuming the function getinivar() returns the variable value from the configuration file.



[code]

// setting PHP error reporting

switch(getinivar('php_error_reporting')) {

case 0: error_reporting(0); break;

case 1: error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE); break;

case 2: error_reporting(E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE | E_NOTICE); break;

case 3: error_reporting(E_ALL ^ (E_NOTICE | E_WARNING)); break;

case 4: error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE); break;

case 5: error_reporting(E_ALL); break;

default:

    error_reporting(E_ALL);

}

[/code]



Feroz Zahid.

simon at firepages dot com dot au
23-Nov-2003 04:04


I needed to get a string representation of the integer value returned by ini_get( 'error_reporting' ) ;& this is what I ended up with if its of any use ... It appears to work ok.



<?

$err=array(1 => 'E_ERROR' , 2 => 'E_WARNING' , 4 => 'E_PARSE' , 8 => 'E_NOTICE' ,16 => 'E_CORE_ERROR' ,

32 => 'E_CORE_WARNING' ,64 => 'E_COMPILE_ERROR' ,128 => 'E_COMPILE_WARNING' ,

256 => 'E_USER_ERROR' ,512 => 'E_USER_WARNING' ,1024 => 'E_USER_NOTICE' ,2047 => 'E_ALL ');



function foo( &$intval ){

    $x=2047;

    while( $x > 0 ){

        if( $x < $intval ){

            $intval = $intval - abs( $x ) ;

            return abs( $x ) ;

        }

        $x = ceil( $x / 2 ) ;

    }

}



function bar( $intval ,$err ){

    while( $intval > 0 ){

        if( isset( $err[$intval] ) ){

            $array[] = $err[$intval];

            break;

        }

        $rets = foo( $intval ) ; 

        $array[] = $err[$rets];

    }

    return $array ;

}



$intval = 2047 - (int)ini_get( 'error_reporting' ) ;

echo 'E_ALL & ~ ( ' .@implode( ' | ' , bar( $intval , $err ) ) . ' ) ';

?>

hughjonesd at yahoo dot co dot uk
04-Sep-2003 12:49


In response to peterdodge below: sometimes it's a good idea to throw errors, because they warn the developer (or user) that something is wrong. It might be better to throw an error, but to set up a good error handler in order to display a useful error page or message to the reader. If you're clever, you can even set up a stack of error handlers, and have errors "thrown" and "caught" at different points in your script.

peterdodge at liquidfirestudios.com
21-May-2003 03:33


Try to avoid the use of E_USER_* errors when you can, as the script can better handle bad input better with conditional branching:





# e.g. user entered "foo"





$bad_data = "foo";





if ($input == $bad_data)


{


   myErrorHandler("Gave bad data $input");


}


else


{


   processData($input);


}





Also, as a programming practice try to use E_NOTICE whenever possible to catch undefined variables.

jernberg at fairytale dot se
27-Feb-2003 06:27


tip: if you want your error_reporting()-setting to work with your own error handler you could simply check the error number against the current error bitmask.



function myErrorHandler( $errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline )

{

  $replevel = error_reporting();

  if( ( $errno & $replevel ) != $errno )

  {

    // we shall remain quiet.

    return;

  }

  echo( "error....." );

}

ronald at segment dot info
11-Feb-2003 11:09


Function translateErrorReportingConstant2String()

{

 $current = error_reporting();

 $out = "";



  if (($current & E_ERROR          ) == E_ERROR          ){ $out .=" E_ERROR           | "; }

  if (($current & E_WARNING        ) == E_WARNING        ){ $out .=" E_WARNING         | "; }

  if (($current & E_PARSE          ) == E_PARSE          ){ $out .=" E_PARSE           | "; }

  if (($current & E_NOTICE         ) == E_NOTICE         ){ $out .=" E_NOTICE          | "; }

  if (($current & E_CORE_ERROR     ) == E_CORE_ERROR     ){ $out .=" E_CORE_ERROR      | "; }

  if (($current & E_CORE_WARNING   ) == E_CORE_WARNING   ){ $out .=" E_CORE_WARNING    | "; }

  if (($current & E_COMPILE_ERROR  ) == E_COMPILE_ERROR  ){ $out .=" E_COMPILE_ERROR   | "; }

  if (($current & E_COMPILE_WARNING) == E_COMPILE_WARNING){ $out .=" E_COMPILE_WARNING | "; }

  if (($current & E_USER_ERROR     ) == E_USER_ERROR     ){ $out .=" E_USER_ERROR      | "; }

  if (($current & E_USER_WARNING   ) == E_USER_WARNING   ){ $out .=" E_USER_WARNING    | "; }

  if (($current & E_USER_NOTICE    ) == E_USER_NOTICE    ){ $out .=" E_USER_NOTICE     | "; }

  if (($current & E_ALL            ) == E_ALL            ){ $out .=" E_ALL             | "; }

 return $out;

 }

}

jjuffermans at chello dot com
04-Jan-2003 09:47


[Editor's Note]


Instead of using @ to suppress errors if the file does not exist you should do a conditional include:





if (is_file("nosuchfile.php")) {


 include_once("nosuchfile.php");


}








Note that when you use the @ to suppress the error of an include file that couldn'd be found, like so:





  @include("nosuchfile.php");





It also suppresses all the parse errors generated in "nosuchfile.php" if it does exist.





It took us a long time before we discovered why we weren't  getting any parse errors... This is it.





Personally, I don't like this... Maybe it can be changed in a future php version? :)





Coditor

sreid at sea-to-sky dot net
18-Nov-2002 04:16


It seems that using E_NOTICE (included with E_ALL) is the only way to get warnings about undefined variables. For example, if you type $soemthing when you mean $something, you may not get any message about it unless you use E_NOTICE level reporting.



The problem is, at that level of reporting you also get notices about array indexes that have not been set. This means lots of warnings when using $_GET['formvariable'] and such. You can check isset($_GET['formvariable']) first, but that gets annoying, especially when it is redundant to stricter input validation you need to do anyway.



The only solution I have found is to use set_error_handler() to register a custom error reporting function to report everything except where the error string starts with "Undefined index:". Then I call error_reporting(E_ALL). This seems to be the best compromise.



function error_handler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline, $errctx) {

    if ($errno == E_NOTICE && substr($errstr, 0, 17) == "Undefined index: ") return;

    echo "\nerror_handler:\n\terrno=$errno\n\terrstr=$errstr\n";

    echo "\terrfile=$errfile\n\terrline=$errline\n";

    if ($errno & (E_ERROR | E_CORE_ERROR | E_COMPILE_ERROR | E_USER_ERROR)) die();

}

set_error_handler("error_handler");

error_reporting(E_ALL);

rbt at zort.ca
09-Feb-2002 11:25


It should be noted that in apache.conf files the defined values (constants) don't work.  For E_ALL logging, one would use:





php_admin_value error_reporting 2047

25-Mar-2001 12:32


It seems that parse errors will be handled internally even if you've designated your own error handler; that is, your error-handling function will /not/ be called on a parse error.

cgi at harrison dot org
11-Dec-2000 06:59


[Editor's Note: The error suppression operator (@)can be used to suppress errors for a single expression. To use the operator, place it in front of the expression that you wish to suppress error reporting for. Basic use is:





$fp = @ fopen ('non-existant.file', 'r');





 See the url below for details.]





Error Suppression Operator - Info


http://www.php.net/manual/language.operators.errorcontrol.php

j dot schriver at vindiou dot com
03-Oct-2000 02:37


error_reporting() has no effect if you have defined your own error handler with set_error_handler()





[Editor's Note: This is not quite accurate.





E_ERROR, E_PARSE, E_CORE_ERROR, E_CORE_WARNING, E_COMPILE_ERROR and E_COMPILE_WARNING error levels will be handled as per the error_reporting settings.





All other levels of errors will be passed to the custom error handler defined by set_error_handler().





Zeev Suraski suggests that a simple way to use the defined levels of error reporting with your custom error handlers is to add the following line to the top of your error handling function:





if (!($type & error_reporting())) return;





 -zak@php.net]

durchholz at sourceforge dot net
25-Aug-2000 06:13


Here's how to temporarily lower the error reporting level:





$old_error_reporting = error_reporting(E_ALL & ~(E_WARNING | E_NOTICE | ...));


... do whatever you want to do in less verbose mode


error_reporting($old_error_reporting);

03-Feb-2000 02:31


The E_NOTICE error reporting level reports the use of undefined variables as an error.





For example:


error_level (E_ALL); # Set error reporting to highest level


if ($foo)            # This will generate an error


  print "bar";       # because $foo is not defined





To avoid this behavior, use isset to test if the given


variable has been defined.





For example:


error_level (E_ALL);


if (isset ($foo))


    print "bar";

webmaster at l-i-e dot com
21-May-1999 05:13


[Editor's Note: E_ALL will contain the result of OR'ing all of the applicable error constants together. For PHP 3, this will be the first 4 E_xxx constants.  For PHP 4, this will be all constants. ]





There is also an E_ALL which is the first 4 E_xxx added up for you...

error_reporting

Description

Parameters

Return Values

Examples

Notes

See Also