Accessing variables from a function within a function

[blank_man]

I have the following class:

class ErrorLog
{

  var $logFile = "";

  function ErrorLog($fileName)
  {
    error_reporting(E_ALL);
    $this->logFile = $fileName;

    function handleError($type, $msg, $file, $line)
    {
      error_log("$msg", 3, $this->logFile);
    }
    set_error_handler('handleError');
  }
}

The problem I am experiencing is that the $logFile variable cannot be accessed from within the handleError() function. When I run this code, PHP reports an undefined variable error for the $this variable. I've tried using $logFile instead of $this->logFile, but PHP still cannot recognise the variable. I've also tried adding global $logFile into the handleError function, but it still doesn't work.

Anybody know what I am missing here?

Thanks for your help!

[brainpipe]

Well... yeah. handleError() has no knowledge of ErrorLog or its members. Why is handleError() a sub of the constructor? Is there some reason you can't make it a class method?

[Mandibal]

I'm wondering why you would ever want to do this? (function in the function). I cant think of a good reason for doing this. Can you explain your reasoning for this? (and i'm not sure this is even good programming semantics (wd?) ) Thanks.

[Gaheris]

set_error_handler also accepts methods.

set_error_handler(array(&$this, 'handleError')); 

and then add a method handleError to the ErrorLog class.

[blank_man]

I'm wondering why you would ever want to do this? (function in the function). I cant think of a good reason for doing this. Can you explain your reasoning for this? (and i'm not sure this is even good programming semantics (wd?) ) Thanks.

Actually, I got this code directly from a user-contributed note on the PHP manual that seemed to make sense at the time. You can see the page at http://www.php.net/manual/en/functio...or-handler.php, it's the user comment posted by Thomas Staunton. Anyway, I wanted to do this because I wanted to put the error_handler function inside an error handling class, which is then called by other PHP programs to deal with errors. I did this before I realised that the set_error_handler function could actually accept an array containing an object reference and method name. So I managed to get the error_log class working now by using set_error_handler(array("className", "handleErrorFunction").

Thanks for everyone's help!

[Mandibal]

Off Topic:

Actually, I got this code directly from a user-contributed note on the PHP manual that seemed to make sense at the time.

Fair enough. Not sure what your take is now on the validity of doing something like this but I dont see the reason to ever complicate things by doing this. The below makes more sense as far as I can tell.

Class Error {
 
 * Function Error() {
 **  set_error_handler('HandleError');
 * }

   Function HandleError($n, $m, $f, $l){
 ** *  print_r(debug_backtrace());
 **}
 } 

Again if some one can explain to me why this isnt better than the way the guy posted in the user comments of the manual please tell me.