Question

I’m trying to debug a php script that is running on my university’s server. The current version of php installed is 5.1.6.

It is my understanding that error_get_last() will only work for versions >= 5.2. I’m trying to echo error details for a failed mkdir() call which I’m sure is caused by the permissions of one of the directories involved. I’m hoping that the error message will shed some light on the matter but I can’t find a way to view the error details and I don’t think that I can even access the other php error logs to check there either.

What are my other options?

Answer 1

You could try to make your own error handler:

# temporary error handler 
function tempErrorHandler($errNo, $errStr, $errFile, $errLine, array $errContext) {
    # continue to practice @ suppression
    if (0 === error_reporting()) {
        return false;
    }
    # throw it
    throw new ErrorException($errStr, 0, $errNo, $errFile, $errLine);
}

# make this the error handler for now..
set_error_handler('tempErrorHandler');

# use a try..catch
try {
    mkdir('../directory with some permission problem../../');
}
catch (ErrorException $e) {
    # echo it out
    echo $e->getMessage();
    # or do whatever you want with it: this part is just an EXAMPLE
    $errMsg = $e->getMessage();
    $isPermissionDenied = strpos($errMsg, 'Permission denied');
    if ($isPermissionDenied) {
        # do something
    }
}

# revert to previous error handler
restore_error_handler();

Please take note of the comment # or do whatever you want with it: this part is just an EXAMPLE –I’m not sure what error you get at version 5.1.6, so you can just play around with it..