PHP Error Handling & Logging

Error handling isn’t just about catching bugs; it’s about failing gracefully and learning from your failures. PHP offers a variety of mechanisms for dealing with errors and exceptions. In production, you want to surface as much context as possible without exposing it to users.

1. Exceptions versus errors

Use exceptions for unexpected situations and leave fatal errors for truly unrecoverable states. Start by wrapping risky operations in try and catch blocks.

try {
    // risky operation
    $result = dangerousOperation();
} catch (Exception $e) {
    error_log($e->getMessage());
    // graceful fallback
}

2. Logging strategies

Enable error_reporting to the appropriate level and send errors to a dedicated log file. Never display raw stack traces to end users; set display_errors = Off in production.

3. Custom handlers

You can register global error and exception handlers to centralize logging. Use set_error_handler and set_exception_handler to route all unhandled issues through your own logger.

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