Question

I’m currently testing a script on my host. This script is to accept PayPal IPN data, do a couple of things (ie. data verification), send necessary data to a specific email address, and more.

I’m using a test tool on the PayPal site to post test data to my script. My script doesn’t work: there should be a code issued but I can’t see the error. The test tool in PayPal just does the post and doesn’t seem to accept any response. I want to see what happened in my script so that I can fix it. How can I get error messages my script outputs?

Any ideas?

Answer 1

A better approach would be to log the errors to a file, and not the ‘screen’. If you make a server wide change, it’s probable that other sites on the server will be affected.

• log_errors = On
• display_errors = Off
• error_log = /tmp/php.log (or a better path of your choosing; file probably needs to be writable by Apache/webserver).

Failing all of the above, install xdebug and try debugging the code – you can step through line by line and inspect variables at will – perhaps this will give you a better idea.

Failing that, resort to var_dump() and friends.