I guess you meant set_error_handler(). Can you please provide a short example script that doesn't work as documented?

here is my code. I have tried every combination of &$err/error_handler I 
could think off and none seem to work.    
 
------------------------code--------------- 
<?php 
 
$err = new Error(); 
//this should work but doesn't 
$old_eh = set_error_handler(array(&$err, 'errorHandler')); 
 
//this one works 
//$old_eh = set_error_handler('errorHandler')); 
 
// trigger my error. 
trigger_error('This is a booboo!', E_USER_ERROR); 
 
 
//begin error class 
Class Error 
{ 
 
	function errorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) { 
 
		switch ($errno) { 
		case FATAL: 
			echo "<b>FATAL</b> [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
		case ERROR: 
			echo "<b>ERROR</b> [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
		case WARNING: 
			echo "<b>WARNING</b> [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
			default: 
			echo "Unkown error type: [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
		} 
	} 
 
} // end class 
 
 
//same as above without being in a class 
function errorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) { 
 
		switch ($errno) { 
		case FATAL: 
			echo "<b>FATAL</b> [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
		case ERROR: 
			echo "<b>ERROR</b> [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
		case WARNING: 
			echo "<b>WARNING</b> [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
			default: 
			echo "Unkown error type: [$errno] $errstr<br>\n"; 
			break; 
		} 
	} 
?> 
------------------end code--------------

I actually updated the docs... there was a bugreport about it but since it worked fine here (4.3.0-dev), I updated the docs. Please try a snapshot from http://snaps.php.net and reopen if the problem persists.