How do I stop PHP output buffering from eating error messages?

Question

Well, now that I\'ve gotten a bit further into it, I realize that this is a stupid question, and wrong. Turns out that the author of the legacy code I maintain was hi-jackin

Answer 1

Exceptions penetrate ob_start() shield

If you want to stop PHP script execution, rather throw an Exception, which will penetrate the ob_start(), ob_end_flush() shield

echo 'before output buffer';
ob_start();
throw new Exception('this will be seen');
ob_end_flush();

---

Consider creating a Logger class

Don't output directly with your method, rather use a class or a holder which incorporates the log (or error method in your case), eg:

class Logger
{
    private $_messages = array();

    public function __construct()
    {
        $this->_messages['errors'] = array();
        $this->_messages['debug'] = array();
    }

    public function error($msg)
    {
        $this->_messages['errors'][] = $msg;
    }

    public function debug($msg)
    {
        $this->_messages['debug'] = $msg;
    }

    public function getErrors()
    {
        return $this->_messages['errors'];
    }

}

$logger = new Logger();

$logger->error('error1');

ob_start();

$logger->error('error2');

ob_end_flush();

print_r($logger->getErrors());

this way you can rely on the holder object, it will not discard messages and get all errors, that you wanted to display

Answer 2

I've never done this in practice, but this should work:

You would have to build a wrapper around error_log() that

1. stores the output you are buffering using ob_get_contents()
2. erases the output buffer using ob_clean()
3. writes out the error message and ob_flush()es it
4. writes back the stored output using echo()