Errors & Logging

• Configuration
• Handling Errors
• HTTP Exceptions
• Logging

Configuration

The logging facilities for your application are configured in the Illuminate\Foundation\Bootstrap\ConfigureLogging bootstrapper class. This class utilizes the log configuration option from your config/app.php configuration file.

By default, the logger is configured to use daily log files; however, you may customize this behavior as needed. Since Laravel uses the popular Monolog logging library, you can take advantage of the variety of handlers that Monolog offers.

For example, if you wish to use a single log file instead of daily files, you can make the following change to your config/app.php configuration file:

'log' => 'single'

Out of the box, Laravel supported single, daily, syslog and errorlog logging modes. However, you are free to customize the logging for your application as you wish by overriding the ConfigureLogging bootstrapper class.

Error Detail

The amount of error detail your application displays through the browser is controlled by the app.debug configuration option in your config/app.php configuration file. By default, this configuration option is set to respect the APP_DEBUG environment variable, which is stored in your .env file.

For local development, you should set the APP_DEBUG environment variable to true. In your production environment, this value should always be false.

Handling Errors

All exceptions are handled by the App\Exceptions\Handler class. This class contains two methods: report and render.

The report method is used to log exceptions or send them to an external service like BugSnag. By default, the report method simply passes the exception to the base implementation on the parent class where the exception is logged. However, you are free to log exceptions however you wish. If you need to report different types of exceptions in different ways, you may use the PHP instanceof comparison operator:

/**
 * Report or log an exception.
 *
 * This is a great spot to send exceptions to Sentry, Bugsnag, etc.
 *
 * @param  \Exception  $e
 * @return void
 */
public function report(Exception $e)
{
    if ($e instanceof CustomException)
    {
        //
    }
 
    return parent::report($e);
}

The render method is responsible for converting the exception into an HTTP response that should be sent back to the browser. By default, the exception is passed to the base class which generates a response for you. However, you are free to check the exception type or return your own custom response.

The dontReport property of the exception handler contains an array of exception types that will not be logged. By default, exceptions resulting from 404 errors are not written to your log files. You may add other exception types to this array as needed.

HTTP Exceptions

Some exceptions describe HTTP error codes from the server. For example, this may be a "page not found" error (404), an "unauthorized error" (401) or even a developer generated 500 error. In order to return such a response, use the following:

abort(404);

Optionally, you may provide a response:

abort(403, 'Unauthorized action.');

This method may be used at any time during the request's lifecycle.

Custom 404 Error Page

To return a custom view for all 404 errors, create a resources/views/errors/404.blade.php file. This view will be served on all 404 errors generated by your application.

Logging

The Laravel logging facilities provide a simple layer on top of the powerful Monolog library. By default, Laravel is configured to create daily log files for your application which are stored in the storage/logs directory. You may write information to the log like so:

Log::info('This is some useful information.');
 
Log::warning('Something could be going wrong.');
 
Log::error('Something is really going wrong.');

The logger provides the seven logging levels defined in RFC 5424: debug, info, notice, warning, error, critical, and alert.

An array of contextual data may also be passed to the log methods:

Log::info('Log message', ['context' => 'Other helpful information']);

Monolog has a variety of additional handlers you may use for logging. If needed, you may access the underlying Monolog instance being used by Laravel:

$monolog = Log::getMonolog();

You may also register an event to catch all messages passed to the log:

Registering A Log Event Listener

Log::listen(function($level, $message, $context)
{
    //
});