PHP Error Handling and Debugging (Professional Basics)

Errors are normal. The goal is to understand them quickly and fix with confidence.

Turn on errors in development

```php ini_set('display_errors', '1'); ini_set('display_startup_errors', '1'); error_reporting(E_ALL); ```

Use this in local/dev only, not production.

Common debugging tools

### var_dump() ```php var_dump($user); ```

### print_r() ```php print_r($arr); ```

### die() / exit() ```php die("Stop here"); ```

Production rule

In production: - do not show errors to users - log them instead

```php ini_set('display_errors', '0'); ini_set('log_errors', '1'); ini_set('error_log', __DIR__ . '/php-error.log'); ```

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