Even the pro developer does leave room for error when writing the code. These errors or bugs are the hurdles that would affect the smooth functioning of the websites and applications.
So how do the developers know there is a code bug?
This is the type of error message that comes into play.
Here are five types of most important error messages and what they mean to inform you.
Notices
This is the least severe type of error that you would come across in custom php website development for your projects. If a PHP script encounters a syntax error, it will produce an error message and stop execution. The parser will not execute any code that follows that point in the script but instead generates a notice that tells you about the problem.
If a script has no errors at all and does everything correctly, then it does not generate any notices or warnings.
Warnings
Warnings are used to highlight potential problems in your code. Unlike errors, warnings do not stop the execution of the script and do not throw an exception. They can be turned off using the php.ini setting error_reporting=0;
Warnings are printed on the screen and can be viewed with a web browser (for example, by viewing them in our old friend: Firebug).
Fatal errors
Fatal errors are the most serious and fatal errors in PHP. They are not allowed and will cause the script to stop as the function is called without its definition.
Any PHP code can generate fatal errors, but they're generally introduced by using new statements that don't exist in your codebase yet or trying to use functions that may have been changed since a previous version of your application was deployed.
They're displayed in red on the screen, so you know exactly what went wrong when you see them:
Parse or syntax errors
The other type of error is a parse or syntax error. This means that the PHP parser will not be able to parse the code properly, and therefore it's not valid.
Missing semicolons at the end of lines: If you have two statements on one line, ensure semicolons are at both ends of each statement so that your code can be parsed correctly by PHP.
Missing closing brace: If you use multiple statements on one line and don't close them with a closing brace (}), then your code will also be invalid because it has no way of knowing when each statement ended—and therefore cannot execute properly!
Missing closing parenthesis: Another common mistake is forgetting about parentheses; this can result in strange behaviour when trying to access variables inside an if statement or similar constructions requiring parenthesis around their contents.
How to enable error reporting in PHP?
The following code snippets will show you the different ways to enable error reporting during custom PHP website development for your projects:
E_ALL: This is the default setting for your web server. It comes with all the errors, warnings and notices that your PHP engine can produce.
E_STRICT: This enables a strict mode where all warnings and errors are reported as well as any invalid syntaxes or inconsistent usage of operators like (not equal to) etc.
Error Reporting: This disables all runtime error messages from being logged at all levels of your application, including request level, response headers and HTML content (see below).
Conclusion
PHP is an open-source language that can be used to create websites and applications. There are many different types of errors that can occur when executing PHP code, each with its own causes and consequences.
In this article, we listed four of the most common yet inevitable errors PHP developers face, what they mean, how to fix them, and any possible solutions available to fix these issues.
Good luck with your project!
