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

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()

var_dump($user);

print_r()

print_r($arr);

die() / exit()

die("Stop here");

Production rule

In production:

• do not show errors to users
• log them instead

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

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