How do I catch a PHP fatal (`E_ERROR`) error?

Question

I can use set_error_handler() to catch most PHP errors, but it doesn\'t work for fatal (E_ERROR) errors, such as calling a function that doesn\'t e

Answer 1

There are certain circumstances in which even fatal errors should be caught (you might need to do some clean up before exiting gracefully and don’t just die..).

I have implemented a pre_system hook in my CodeIgniter applications so that I can get my fatal errors through emails, and this helped me finding bugs that were not reported (or were reported after they were fixed, as I already knew about them :)).

Sendemail checks if the error has already been reported so that it does not spam you with known errors multiple times.

class PHPFatalError {

    public function setHandler() {
        register_shutdown_function('handleShutdown');
    }
}

function handleShutdown() {
    if (($error = error_get_last())) {
        ob_start();
        echo "
";
        var_dump($error);
        echo "
";
        $message = ob_get_clean();
        sendEmail($message);
        ob_start();
        echo '{"status":"error","message":"Internal application error!"}';
        ob_flush();
        exit();
    }
}