2.7     Abnormal script termination

NOTE: This is NOT the latest copy of this book; click here for the latest version.

Although you would obviously rather that your PHP scripts always execute correctly from the start of the script to the end of the script, there are a variety of reasons why they might not. Put succinctly, these reasons are:

1. You've screwed up somewhere, and PHP cannot execute your code.

2. PHP has screwed up somewhere due to a bug, and cannot continue

3. Your script has taken too long to execute, and gets killed by PHP

4. Your script has requested more memory than PHP can allocate, and gets killed by PHP

To be brutally honest, the first situation is unequivocally the most common by a vast amount. This will change a little as your skill with PHP improves, but the first situation is still the most common even amongst the most veteran programmers! There is a large chunk of this book dedicated to debugging PHP code - feel free to skip ahead to start reading there if you're already fluent on the PHP basics.