Turn off display errors using file "php.ini"

Question

I am trying to turn off all errors on my website. I have followed different tutorials on how to do this, but I keep getting read and open error messages. Is there something I am missing?

I have tried the following in my php.ini file:

;Error display display_startup_errors = Off display_errors = Off html_errors = Off docref_root = 0 docref_ext = 0 

For some reason when I do a fileopen() call for a file which does not exist, I still get the error displayed. This is not safe for a live website, for obvious reasons.

Answer 1

I always use something like this in a configuration file:

// Toggle this to change the setting define('DEBUG', true);  // You want all errors to be triggered error_reporting(E_ALL);  if(DEBUG == true) {     // You're developing, so you want all errors to be shown     display_errors(true);      // Logging is usually overkill during development     log_errors(false); } else {     // You don't want to display errors on a production environment     display_errors(false);      // You definitely want to log any occurring     log_errors(true); } 

This allows easy toggling between debug settings. You can improve this further by checking on which server the code is running (development, test, acceptance, and production) and change your settings accordingly.

Note that no errors will be logged if error_reporting is set to 0, as cleverly remarked by Korri.

Answer 2

You should consider not displaying your error messages instead!

Set ini_set('display_errors', 'Off'); in your PHP code (or directly into your ini file if possible), and leave error_reporting on E_ALL or whatever kind of messages you would like to find in your logs.

This way you can handle errors later, while your users still don't see them.

Full example:

define('DEBUG', true); error_reporting(E_ALL);  if (DEBUG) {     ini_set('display_errors', 'On'); } else {     ini_set('display_errors', 'Off'); } 

Or simply (same effect):

define('DEBUG', true);  error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', DEBUG ? 'On' : 'Off');