To be able to see database errors, one have to set PDO errmode to exceptions. Exceptions are better than regular errors in many ways: they always contains a stack trace, they can be caught using try..catch or handled using dedicated error handler. And even unhandled, they act as regular PHP errors providing all the important information, following site-wide error reporting settings.
Note that setting this mode as a connection option will let PDO throw exceptions on connection errors too, which is very important.
So, here is an example for creating a PDO connection right way:
$dsn = "mysql:host=$host;dbname=$db;charset=utf8";
$opt = array(
PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION,
// other options
);
$pdo = new PDO($dsn, $user, $pass, $opt);
Connecting this way, you will be always notified of all database errors, occurred during query execution. Note that you have to be able to see PHP errors in general. On a live site you have to peek into error logs, so, settings have to be
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors',0);
ini_set('log_errors',1);
while on a local development server it's ok to make errors on screen:
error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors',1);
and of course you should never ever use error suppression operator (@
) in front of your PDO statements.
Also, due to many bad examples telling you to wrap every PDO statement into try..catch
block, I have to make a distinct note:
DO NOT use try..catch operator just to echo an error message. Uncaught exception is already excellent for this purpose, as it will act just the same way as other PHP errors - so, you can define the behavior using site-wide settings - so, you will have your error message without this useless code. While unconditionally echoed error message may reveal some sensitive information to a potential attacker, yet confuse a honest visitor.
- A custom exception handler could be added later, but not required. Especially for new users, it is recommended to use unhandled exceptions, as they are extremely informative, helpful and secure.
- Use
try..catch
only if you are going to handle the error itself - say, to rollback a transaction.
Also, I find article_XXX
fields quite useless. Can't you make these image names computational
? Say, for the article id = 100500 the 100 image would be 100500_100.jpg?