How to do error logging in CodeIgniter (PHP)

To simply put a line in the server's error log, use PHP's error_log() function. However, that method will not send an e-mail.

First, to trigger an error:

trigger_error("Error message here", E_USER_ERROR);

By default, this will go in the server's error log file. See the ErrorLog directive for Apache. To set your own log file:

ini_set('error_log', 'path/to/log/file');

Note that the log file you choose must already exist and be writable by the server process. The simplest way to make the file writable is to make the server user the owner of the file. (The server user may be nobody, _www, apache, or something else, depending on your OS distribution.)

To e-mail the error, you need to set up a custom error handler:

function mail_error($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) {
  $message = "[Error $errno] $errstr - Error on line $errline in file $errfile";
  error_log($message); // writes the error to the log file
  mail('[email protected]', 'I have an error', $message);
}
set_error_handler('mail_error', E_ALL^E_NOTICE);

Please see the relevant PHP documentation for more info.

CodeIgniter has some error logging functions built in.

• Make your /application/logs folder writable
• In /application/config/config.php set
  $config['log_threshold'] = 1;
  or use a higher number, depending on how much detail you want in your logs
• Use log_message('error', 'Some variable did not contain a value.');
• To send an email you need to extend the core CI_Exceptions class method log_exceptions(). You can do this yourself or use this. More info on extending the core here

See http://www.codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/errors.html

Also make sure that you have allowed codeigniter to log the type of messages you want in a config file.

i.e $config['log_threshold'] = [log_level ranges 0-4];

In config.php add or edit the following lines to this:
------------------------------------------------------
$config['log_threshold'] = 4; // (1/2/3)
$config['log_path'] = '/home/path/to/application/logs/';

Run this command in the terminal:
----------------------------------
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/path/to/application/logs/