php_errormsg is extremely valuable facility. It allows
for transparent custom logging of errors. The facility
doesn't supply all needed informations though - namely,
it's impossible to find out where exactly the error
occured and what was the type of error. This means
this information has to be tracked in PHP code itself,
which is both tedious and inflexible (think "general
error handlers"). Passing __FILE__ and __LINE__
to error handler is surely possible, but a bit
tedious and generally would produce slighly bogus
line numbers.

Here is a patch to add several other variables - namely
php_error_lineno (int), php_error_filename (string) and
php_error_type (string). php_errormsg has been renamed
to php_error_msg, to be consistent with others (as
this is fairly new feature, it's better to rename it
now that having inconsistent interface).

There is a bit annoying bit about current php_errmsg
in that it's not initialized on startup, so unless
php_error() is called, PHP gives an uninitialized warning
if it's used. I'm not sure this needs to be addressed
(I can send necessary patch upon request). I'd be inclined
to explicitly initialize the php_error_* to empty
strings/0 on startup.

Of course, it would be cool if there would be a possibility
to register a function as a custom error handler, which
would be called if an error occurs - similarily to e.g.
shutdownhooks. But this needs more though and testing,
so I don't think such feature is adept for 4.0.


XXX
--- main.c.orig	Sun Apr 16 10:24:15 2000
+++ main.c	Tue Apr 18 09:41:43 2000
@@ -299,7 +299,8 @@
 PHPAPI void php_error(int type, const char *format, ...)
 {
 	va_list args;
-	char *error_filename = NULL;
+	const char *error_filename = NULL;
+	const char *error_type_str = NULL;
 	uint error_lineno;
 	char buffer[1024];
 	int size = 0;
@@ -340,31 +341,29 @@
 		error_filename = "Unknown";
 	}
 		
-	if (EG(error_reporting) & type || (type & E_CORE)) {
-		char *error_type_str;
-
-		switch (type) {
-			case E_ERROR:
-			case E_CORE_ERROR:
-			case E_COMPILE_ERROR:
-				error_type_str = "Fatal error";
-				break;
-			case E_WARNING:
-			case E_CORE_WARNING:
-			case E_COMPILE_WARNING:
-				error_type_str = "Warning";
-				break;
-			case E_PARSE:
-				error_type_str = "Parse error";
-				break;
-			case E_NOTICE:
-				error_type_str = "Warning";
-				break;
-			default:
-				error_type_str = "Unknown error";
-				break;
-		}
+	switch (type) {
+		case E_ERROR:
+		case E_CORE_ERROR:
+		case E_COMPILE_ERROR:
+			error_type_str = "Fatal error";
+			break;
+		case E_WARNING:
+		case E_CORE_WARNING:
+		case E_COMPILE_WARNING:
+			error_type_str = "Warning";
+			break;
+		case E_PARSE:
+			error_type_str = "Parse error";
+			break;
+		case E_NOTICE:
+			error_type_str = "Warning";
+			break;
+		default:
+			error_type_str = "Unknown error";
+			break;
+	}
 
+	if (EG(error_reporting) & type || (type & E_CORE)) {
 		/* get include file name */
 		if (PG(log_errors) || PG(display_errors) || (!module_initialized)) {
 			va_start(args, format);
@@ -413,13 +412,48 @@
 		va_end(args);
 		buffer[sizeof(buffer) - 1] = 0;
 
+		/* error_msg */
 		ALLOC_ZVAL(tmp);
 		INIT_PZVAL(tmp);
 		tmp->value.str.val = (char *) estrndup(buffer, size);
 		tmp->value.str.len = size;
 		tmp->type = IS_STRING;
 
-		zend_hash_update(EG(active_symbol_table), "php_errormsg", sizeof("php_errormsg"), (void **) & tmp, sizeof(pval *), NULL);
+		zend_hash_update(EG(active_symbol_table), "php_error_msg", sizeof("php_error_msg"), (void **) & tmp, sizeof(pval *), NULL);
+
+		/* error_type_str */
+		size = strlen(error_type_str);
+		ALLOC_ZVAL(tmp);
+		INIT_PZVAL(tmp);
+		/* error_type_str is const, no need to copy it */
+		tmp->value.str.val = (char *) error_type_str;
+		tmp->value.str.len = size;
+		tmp->type = IS_STRING;
+
+		zend_hash_update(EG(active_symbol_table), "php_error_type", sizeof("php_error_type"), (void **) & tmp, sizeof(pval *), NULL);
+		
+		/* error_lineno */
+		ALLOC_ZVAL(tmp);
+		INIT_PZVAL(tmp);
+		tmp->value.lval = error_lineno;
+		tmp->type = IS_LONG;
+
+		zend_hash_update(EG(active_symbol_table), "php_error_lineno", sizeof("php_error_lineno"), (void **) & tmp, sizeof(pval *), NULL);
+
+		/* error_filename */
+		if (error_filename)
+			size = strlen(error_filename);
+		else {
+			size = 0;
+			error_filename = "";
+		}
+		ALLOC_ZVAL(tmp);
+		INIT_PZVAL(tmp);
+		tmp->value.str.val = (char *) estrndup(error_filename, size);
+		tmp->value.str.len = size;
+		tmp->type = IS_STRING;
+
+		zend_hash_update(EG(active_symbol_table), "php_error_filename", sizeof("php_error_filename"), (void **) & tmp, sizeof(pval *), NULL);
 	}
 }
XXXX

missing a