Error reporting with CodeIgniter

mc — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 02:38:46 +0000

While CodeIgniter does come with a reasonable error logging tool its simple nature of just dumping a single line report to a file on a distant server does not seem too pro-active for my tastes.

The following helper replaces the default CI error reporting with a new error reporting interface that also emails any errors that occur to a nominated developer.

^?Download err_helper.php

 if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
/**
* Sensibly report of errors that occur in the system by sending that
* error to the developer
* Author: Matt Carter 
* Info: http://hash-bang.net/2009/02/error-reporting-with-cierror-reporting-with-ci/
*/
 
// Where to send the error report. Leave blank for nowhere
define('ERR_MAIL_TO', 'someone@somewhere.com');
 
 // Literal name of that person
define('ERR_MAIL_TO_NAME', 'Joe Random');
define('ERR_MAIL_FROM', 'root@freesweetsite.com');
define('ERR_MAIL_FROM_NAME', 'Error Daemon');
define('ERR_MAIL_METHOD', 'SMTP'); // Supported: SMTP
define('ERR_MAIL_HOST', 'localhost');
define('ERR_MAIL_SENDER', 'root@somewhere.com');
 
 // The subject of the mail. Supported tags: [TYPE], [FILE], [LINE], [STRING], [BASENAME]
define('ERR_MAIL_SUBJECT', 'Error detected: [TYPE] @ [BASENAME]:[LINE]');
 // Other things of interest to include in the email. CSV of supported values: POST, GET, SERVER, GLOBALS, SESSION
define('ERR_MAIL_FOOTERS', 'POST,GET,SESSION');
 
// Relative location of PHP mailer to this file
// (Not relative to the working directory because that doesn't specify correctly with fatal errors).
// By default this assumes that the 'phpMailer' folder is located in the same directory as this script.
define('ERR_PATH_PHPMAILER', 'phpMailer/class.phpmailer.php');
 
function err($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline, $errcontext) {
	$errtable = array(
		1 => 'Fatal',
		2 => 'Warning',
		4 => 'Parse Error',
		8 => 'Notice',
		16 => 'Core Error',
		32 => 'Core Warning',
		64 => 'Compile Error',
		128 => 'Compile Warning',
		256 => 'User Error',
		512 => 'User Warning',
		1024 => 'User Notice',
		2048 => 'Strict Notice',
		4096 => 'Recoverable Error',
		8192 => 'Deprecated',
		16384 => 'User Deprecated',
	);
	$message = "";
	$message .= "\"err-box\">";
	$message .= "\"err-table\">";$message.="";$message.="";$message.="";$message.="";$message.="";$message.="
	  \"100px\">Type: {$errtable[$errno]}
	  Error: $errstr
	  File: $errfile
	  Line: $errline
	  Context: $errcontext
	  
";
	$traces = debug_backtrace();
	array_shift($traces);
	if ( (count($traces) > 1) && ($traces[0]['function'] != 'err_shutdown') ) { // Ignore fatal shutdown traces
		$message .= "\"100%\" class=\"err-table-stack\">";foreach($tracesas$offset=>$trace){// Calculate line numberif($offset==0){// First in trace$message.="";}$message.="\"50px\">Line Function
		      
			
			     
				  
\"text-align: center\">$errline ";
			} else // Nth in trace
				$message .= "
\"text-align: center\">" . (isset($trace['line']) ? $trace['line'] : ' ') . " ";
			// Calculate arg stack
			$trace['argstack'] = '';
			if (isset($trace['args']) && $trace['args']) {
				foreach ($trace['args'] as $arg)
					$trace['argstack'] .= _err_human($arg) . ' , ';
				if ($trace['argstack']) $trace['argstack'] = substr($trace['argstack'], 0, -3);
			}
			// Output context
			if (isset($trace['object'])) { // Object error
				$message .= "{$trace['class']}->{$trace['function']}({$trace['argstack']})";
			} else // Function error
				$message .= "{$trace['function']}({$trace['argstack']})";
			$message .= "
		
		  
";
	}
	$message .= "
";
	if (ERR_MAIL_TO) {
		if (!file_exists($p = dirname(__FILE__) . '/' . ERR_PATH_PHPMAILER)) {
			echo "Cannot find PHP mailer at the relative path '" . ERR_PATH_PHPMAILER ."'. Make sure it is located there to send mails";
		} else {
			require_once($p);
			$mailobj = new PhpMailer();
			if (ERR_MAIL_METHOD == 'SMTP') $mailobj->IsSMTP();
			$mailobj->IsHTML(TRUE);
			$mailobj->CharSet = 'utf-8';
			$mailobj->Host = ERR_MAIL_HOST;
			$mailobj->Sender = ERR_MAIL_SENDER;
			$mailobj->From = ERR_MAIL_FROM;
			$mailobj->FromName = ERR_MAIL_FROM_NAME;
			$mailobj->AddAddress(ERR_MAIL_TO, ERR_MAIL_TO_NAME);
			$mailobj->Subject = strtr(ERR_MAIL_SUBJECT, array(
				'[TYPE]' => $errtable[$errno],
				'[FILE]' => $errfile,
				'[BASENAME]' => basename($errfile),
				'[LINE]' => $errline,
				'[STRING]' => $errstr,
			));
			$extras = preg_split('/\s*,\s*/', ERR_MAIL_FOOTERS);
			if (in_array('GET', $extras)) $message .= _err_dump_array($_GET, 'Get');
			if (in_array('POST', $extras)) $message .= _err_dump_array($_POST, 'Post');
			if (in_array('SESSION', $extras)) $message .= _err_dump_array(isset($_SESSION) ? $_SESSION : array(), 'Session');
			if (in_array('SERVER', $extras)) $message .= _err_dump_array($_SERVER, 'Server');
			if (in_array('GLOBALS', $extras)) $message .= _err_dump_array($_GLOBALS, 'Globals');
			$mailobj->Body = $message;
			$status = $mailobj->Send();
		}
	}
	echo $message;
	return TRUE;
}
 
// Catch fatal errors
function err_shutdown() {
	$err = error_get_last();
	if (in_array($err['type'], array(E_ERROR, E_CORE_ERROR, E_COMPILE_ERROR, E_USER_ERROR)))
		err($err['type'], $err['message'], $err['file'], $err['line'], 'Fatal error');
}
 
function _err_human($what) {
	if (is_object($what)) {
		return get_class($what);
	} elseif (is_array($what)) {
		return "Array[" . count($what) . "]";
	} else
		return $what;
}
 
function _err_dump_array($array, $title) {
	if ($array) {
		$out = '';$out.="";foreach(array_keys($array)as$key)$out.="";$out.='
		  \"2\">Dump of $title array
Key Value
		   
			  $key " . _err_human($array[$key]) . "
		  
';
	} else {
		$out = "$title is empty
";
	}
	return $out;
}
set_error_handler('err', E_ALL);
register_shutdown_function('err_shutdown');
?>

Installation of the component is similar to any CI helper: drop the file into the application/system/helpers directory and create the associated entry in the application/system/config/autoload.php file like so:

^?View Code PHP

1	$autoload['helper'] = array('err');

Then open the above and change the constants at the top of the file to specify where the error messages are sent.

In order to send mail the above component needs the truly excellent PHPMailer package which can be stashed in the same helpers directory. If you do decide to move it somewhere else change the corresponding constant that specifies the location of the library. A small note of warning though – the path to the PHP mailer libraries must be relative to the current file NOT the current working directory. This is due to how PHP handles fatal errors which for some reason sets the working directory to ‘/’.

Should there be any interest I may extend the above with other useful features such as RSS, SMS (text messaging) or other non-SMTP methods of emailing.

Talking in tongues – UTF8 with CodeIgniter

mc — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:55:23 +0000

PHP 4 & 5 unfortunately have major problems working with UTF8. Hopefully this will be solved with PHP6 and its fancy pants new rendering interface.

Until then we have to make do and mend.

First setup your database to work with UTF8. I won’t waste time telling you how to do this in MySQL as many people far brighter than I have written more on the subject.

CodeIgniter comes with UTF8 enabled out of the box so there is little to do configuration wise. Unfortunately pasting a test string such as: 検索 (which I stole from this Wikipedia page) into a CI input box will quickly lead to calamity as CI tries to save the string as ASCII.

Simple solution then, save the following helper in your system/application/helpers folder:

^?Download utf8_helper.php

 if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
/**
* Rewrite all outgoing text into UTF8 compatible streams
* Author: Matt Carter 
* Info: http://hash-bang.net/2009/02/utf8-with-codeigniter
*/
function ob_utf8($string) {
	return utf8_decode($string);
}
ob_start('ob_utf8');
 
foreach ($_POST as $key => $val) // Re-write all incoming text into UTF8 streams
	$_POST[$key] = utf8_encode($val);
?>

Then simply add it to your system/application/autoload.php:

^?View Code PHP

1	$autoload['helper'] = array('utf8');

The helper will automatically convert incoming POST data into MySQL compatible UTF8 and convert outgoing text into HTML UTF8 streams.

Pretty URLS in CodeIgniter

mc — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:49:21 +0000

CodeIgniter has to be my favorite framework for PHP. The way it keeps out of your way while working to an MVC standard is something deserving of the highest praise.

For reasons passing understanding though the programmers of this excellent system have desided not to provide pretty URL’s out of the box. Getting infomation on this is a little tricky so here is my take on the situation.

Simply dump the following into a file called ‘.htaccess’ (Note the starting Dot) in the root path (thats the one at the very start of your path tree that should contain the ‘system’ folder).

^?Download .htaccess

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$		- [L]
 
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|images|robots\.txt)
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

As with most mod_rewrite hacks you will need that enabled on an apache server. Its very rare to find a hosting company that doesn’t use this setup so you should be fine.

You will also need to change the following variable to a blank value in the system/application/config/config.php file:

^?View Code PHP

1	$config['index_page'] = '';

And you’re done. From now on your Urls are addressed in the form: http://SITE/CONTROLLER/METHOD/VALUE1/VALUE2 (e.g. http://mysite.com/users/edit/123123)

#! » CodeIgniter

Error reporting with CodeIgniter

Talking in tongues – UTF8 with CodeIgniter

Pretty URLS in CodeIgniter