prevent "Can't connect" error message

[smerny]

i have ajax refreshing some content... and if my website goes down while someone is on it, they see this:

 

Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

 

how do i prevent this?

[radar]

remove the refresh?

[smerny]

defeat the purpose?

[radar]

have you tried putting an @ at the beginning of your mysql commands?  thats really the only way i know to stop those but even that doesnt work all the time.

[Philip]

... proper error checking?

[smerny]

... proper error checking?

this is what i'm looking/asking for in this thread

[Zane]

mysql_connect(blah blah blah) or die("Error Message")

Most people will argue that trigger_error() is the "proper way" to do it, but really, the proper way is to have a Database Class and have it do all that error checking stuff for you.

 

if you use the mysql_error() function .. (instead of "Error Message") it will give you the reason the connection failed, but for some reason I don't think you want that.

[PFMaBiSmAd]

Actually, because putting or anything() on the end of a statement doesn't address the execution path the remainder of your code takes when there is an error, it is only useful for troubleshooting problems and not ideal for application error handling.

 

On an error, your code should -

 

A) Output a user error message, something like "Due to a server error, this page cannot be accessed at this time."

 

B) Log all the available information about the error - who (ip address, logged in visitor id) caused the error (in case a hacker managed to cause the error or a legitimate visitor happened to do something that your logic could not handle), what the actual data values or query was that caused the error and what error resulted, when the error occurred (so that you could both see if someone is triggering a series of errors to bring your database server down or to match outages with actual problems with your database server), where in your code (file and line number) the error occurred.

 

C) Finish processing and output the remainder of your page that is not dependent on the error that did occur.

 

You should also have display_errors set to OFF and log_errors set to ON for a live server (error_reporting should always be E_ALL or higher) so that all php detected errors are not displayed but they are logged.