I'm running ubuntu 10.04 + nginx + php-fpm 5.4
If I set display_errors = On in php.ini all errors are printed. If Instead I set that to off and then use ini_set('display_errors, '1'); directly in the script they will show as well but not the parse errors, just a blank page. I tried to play with error_reporting too and E_STRICT but I couldn't find a way!
If you disable display_errors in php.ini, and later enable it in your PHP script using ini_set(), it will only be enabled after the line containing that ini_set() call has been executed.
Parse errors occur before the PHP script even starts -- when the PHP file is parsed (hence the "parse error" name).
Which means they occur before your ini_set() has even a chance of being executed -- which means that, in your case, display_errors is not enabled when the parse error occurs ; and, as a consequence, you don't get anything displayed.
here I am years after this was answered, but I found a way around this.
For the script I'm writing, I created a second script which includes the ini_set() directives, followed by an include for the script I really am working on.
To with, here is test_run.php
<?php
ini_set('display_errors', '1');
ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL);
include('./my_script.php');
?>
Aside from turning on display_errors, you can also watch error logs. Typically, running Ubuntu + apache, your error log is going to be in /var/log/apache2/error_log. To watch in real time what's happening, you run something like tail -f /var/log/apache2/error_log.
This can sometimes be more straightforward than fussing with php settings.
**You must enable error displaying in the php.ini file **
I have added ( un-commented ) the following lines, and the parse errors are being displayed now.
error_reporting
Default Value: E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_STRICT & ~E_DEPRECATED
Development Value: E_ALL
Production Value: E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT
