How can I get php to return 500 upon encountering a fatal exception?

Question

PHP fatal errors come back as status code 200 to the HTTP client. How can I make it return a status code 500 (Internal server error)?

Answer 1

The hard thing when dealing with fatal errors (compile errors, for example a missing semicolon) is that the script won't be executed, so it won't help to set the status code in that script. However, when you include or require a script, the calling script will be executed, regardless of errors in the included script. With this, I come to this solution:

rock-solid-script.php:

// minimize changes to this script to keep it rock-solid
http_response_code(500); // PHP >= 5.4
require_once("script-i-want-to-guard-for-errors.php");

script-i-want-to-guard-for-errors.php:

// do all the processsing
// don't produce any output
// you might want to use output buffering

http_response_code(200); // PHP >= 5.4

// here you can produce the output

Direct your call to the rock-solid-script.php and you're ready to go.

I would have liked it better to set the default status code to 500 in .htaccess. That seems more elegant to me but I can't find a way to pull it off. I tried the RewriteRule R-flag, but this prevents execution of php altogether, so that's no use.