Req #60897 [Opn->Csd]: Advocating trigger_error instead of exit/die()

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60897&edit=1 ID: 60897 Updated by: krakjoe@php.net Reported by: luiheidsgoeroe at hotmail dot com Summary: Advocating trigger_error instead of exit/die() -Status: Open +Status: Closed Type: Feature/Change Request Package: Documentation problem Operating System: Irrelevant PHP Version: Irrelevant -Assigned To: +Assigned To: krakjoe Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: As you have correctly observed, documentation is not a work of best use code, they are illustrative examples. That's really the end of it; it is impractical to expect every example in the manual to be the best possible version of the code that it is; not least of all, there are differing opinions on as to what would constitute the best possible version. Thanks for your input, but closing the bug, there really isn't a need to change. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-07-16 15:41:55] notdefix at hotmail dot com The use of trigger_error('Error string', E_USER_ERROR); is far better than die();/exit(); However, in many cases, 'throw new Exception()' might be a better solution. I think it is definately worth improving the examples, be it with exceptions or triggered errors, both are better practice than die/exit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2012-01-26 23:36:40] luiheidsgoeroe at hotmail dot com Description: ------------ Although examples in the documentation are of course only meant as illustrations, we all know that starting developers copy/paste huge chunks of code and then fiddle with the details to get things working. Usually, this turns out alright, but the use of exit(<error message>) and/or die(<error message>) on any error (mysql_connect comes to mind) is widespread in the documentation. This is terrible to debug later, does not leave a message in the error log, and in 3rd party included libraries it is just plain evil. I'd like to advocate: 1) Adding a note to exit()/die() that trigger_error('some message', E_USER_ERROR) would be preferable in production (easily done if people agree with this). 2) Modifying most if not all examples in the documentation that use die() to that trigger_error() (a lot of work). It is of course debatable whether this should happen, as trigger_error() with display_errors on differs with die() in also showing path & linenumber, which is not information visitors should normally get, but then again, neither should display_errors be on. Also an issue could be it clutters the examples somewhat with non-relevant statements, but it is not terribly more verbose then the die()'s that are there now. In my opinion, it would advocate good practices in coding and relieve a lot of irritation and obscurity in debugging code from new coders and monitoring issues. Should this be accepted as indeed the way to go, I would be perfectly willing to comb through the documentation to alter die()/exit() statements to this format and submit a patch, but - as it will take a while - not until there is a definite decision that this is what desirable, otherwise I'd be wasting my time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=60897&edit=1