How to print a debug log?

Question

I'd like to debug some PHP code, but I guess printing a log to screen or file is fine for me.

How should I print a log in PHP code?

The usual print/printf seems to go to HTML output not the console.

I have Apache server executing the PHP code.

Answer 1

You can use the php curl module to make calls to http://liveoutput.com/. This works great in an secure, corporate environment where certain restrictions in the php.ini exists that restrict usage of file_put_contents.

Answer 2

This a great tool for debugging & logging php: PHp Debugger & Logger

It works right out of the box with just 3 lines of code. It can send messages to the js console for ajax debugging and can replace the error handler. It also dumps information about variables like var_dump() and print_r(), but in a more readable format. Very nice tool!

Answer 3

You can also write to a file like this:

$logFilePath = '../logs/debug.text';
ob_start();

// if you want to concatenate:
if (file_exists($logFilePath)) {
    include($logFilePath);
}
// for timestamp
$currentTime = date(DATE_RSS);

// echo log statement(s) here
echo "\n\n$currentTime - [log statement here]";

$logFile = fopen($logFilePath, 'w');
fwrite($logFile, ob_get_contents());
fclose($logFile);
ob_end_flush();

Make sure the proper permissions are set so php can access and write to the file (775).