PHP: How to manage errors gracefully?

Question

When failed to access something on the web (api, database), how would I stop executing the rest of the script and log the error in the log file? Well, and so that the visito

Answer 1

and so that the visitor wouldn't see the exact cause but rather they would see my custom message

I would suggest you to go through this excellent article by David Walsh on custom error handling in PHP.

You can use set_error_handler() function for that.

how would I stop executing the rest of the script and log the error in the log file?

There is a default function of PHP to log errors; error_log

Example from PHP.net:

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More Resources:

This is also good article covering most of it related to error handling.