How to debug php code in this case? - php

Question

I 'm developing an android app which connects to database using PHP API. It's the first time for me to encounter PHP.
What happens is that I "POST" parameters to the php code with a URL to connect to it then php makes a query to my database and store them ... the issue is that all I see is what happens in logcat, I have no idea what is goin on with the PHP so if there is something wrong in there what can I do to debug it ?
Note : I 'm already familiar with echos and var dump I 'm looking for fully debugging tool that will allow me to debug the script without actually running it directly and by that I mean accessing it from my android project.

Answer 1

In such cases i log / append all actions on php side into a file - with a simple
file_put_contents({file}, {data}, FILE_APPEND);
.
u could also catch nearly every error in php with following methods:
set_error_handler({YOUR_ERROR_HANDLER}, E_ALL);
register_shutdown_function({YOUR_ERROR_HANDLER});
http://php.net/manual/de/function.set-error-handler.php
http://php.net/manual/de/function.register-shutdown-function.php
example code of how would i test an envoirement in php, which i could not debug direct:
<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);
// will be triggered on every php shutdown - will log the last error (if one occurs)
register_shutdown_function(function()
{
// get last error
$aError = error_get_last();
if(!empty($aError))
{
logAction('called from register_shutdown_function | ' . $aError['message']);
}
});
// will be triggered on every error
set_error_handler(function($iErrCode, $sErrorText, $sErrorFile = '', $sErrorLine = '')
{
logAction('called from set_error_handler | Code: ' . $iErrCode . ' Text: ' . $sErrorText . ' File: ' . $sErrorFile . ' Line: ' . $sErrorLine);
}, E_ALL);
// will be triggered on every exception
set_exception_handler(function(\Exception $e)
{
logAction('called from set_exception_handler | Code: ' . $e->getCode() . ' Text: ' . $e->getMessage() . ' File: ' . $e->getFile() . ' Line: ' . $e->getLine());
});
// main log / debug method
function logAction($sText)
{
$sDate = date('Y.m.d H:i:s');
file_put_contents('debug.log', $sDate . ': ' . $sText, FILE_APPEND);
}