Error Handling when building WordPress themes

When developing it’s a good idea to enable debugging, as described in this article in the developer handbook.

Essentially in wp-config.php you want to define the WP_DEBUG as true.

define( 'WP_DEBUG', true );

This will cause WordPress to output more errors and warnings to the screen, which can help finding issues. You can also log these to wp-content/debug.log by setting WP_DEBUG_LOG to true:

define( 'WP_DEBUG_LOG', true );

In 5.2+ you might also want to disable the ‘fatal error handler’, which is responsible for the screen that’s displaying the “the site is experiencing technical difficulties” message.

define( 'WP_DISABLE_FATAL_ERROR_HANDLER', true );

Just keep in mind that none of these should be turned on in a live environment.

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