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Subject: [PHP-DEV] Displaying function arguments in errors
Message-ID: <48497C73-5009-4ABC-A83A-702EFD4FAB7F@cmpct.info>
Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2026 15:24:11 -0400
To: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
From: calvin@cmpct.info (Calvin Buckley)

Hi internals,

I'm dusting off an old PR (GH-12276) I had that I had lying around that
I think would be quite useful.

Currently, errors in PHP can optionally return some parameter info in
the docref call; in practice, few do so, except a few functions.
This means if you're looking at a PHP error log, you can see what
function is failing, but often not why without having to step debug it.

What this PR will do is effectively turn this:

```
Warning: unlink('/tmp'): Operation not permitted in =
/Users/calvin/src/chmod.php on line 3

Warning: chown('/', 'calvin'): Operation not permitted in =
/Users/calvin/src/chmod.php on line 4

Warning: chmod('/', 511): Operation not permitted in =
/Users/calvin/src/chmod.php on line 5
```

Into this:

```
Warning: unlink(/tmp): Operation not permitted in =
/Users/calvin/src/chmod.php on line 3

Warning: chown(): Operation not permitted in /Users/calvin/src/chmod.php =
on line 4

Warning: chmod(): Operation not permitted in /Users/calvin/src/chmod.php =
on line 5
```

This should make it easier at a glance to see what goes wrong in a log.
Because this reuses the current infrastructure for stack traces, this
will also handle i.e. sensitive parameters for free.

Because this may not always be desirable (i.e. log size, logging PII
that wasn't tagged as sensitive, not having to rewrite every .phpt
file), this will be an INI option. We can vote on what should be the
defaults, and what should be done with tests. Note that the docref's
parameter will be displayed if it's turned off (or i.e. out of memory).

I think this will almost certainly need an RFC; if there's interest,
I'll start working on that.

Regards,
Calvin

PR is at: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/12276=