Table of Contents
Smarty can catch many errors such as missing tag attributes or malformed variable names. If this happens, you will see an error similar to the following:
Example 20.1. Smarty errors
Warning: Smarty: [in index.tpl line 4]: syntax error: unknown tag - '%blah'
in /path/to/smarty/Smarty.class.php on line 1041
Fatal error: Smarty: [in index.tpl line 28]: syntax error: missing section name
in /path/to/smarty/Smarty.class.php on line 1041
Smarty shows you the template name, the line number and the error. After that, the error consists of the actual line number in the Smarty class that the error occurred.
There are certain errors that Smarty cannot catch, such as missing close tags. These types of errors usually end up in PHP compile-time parsing errors.
Example 20.2. PHP parsing errors
Parse error: parse error in /path/to/smarty/templates_c/index.tpl.php on line 75
When you encounter a PHP parsing error, the error line number will
correspond to the compiled PHP script, NOT the template itself. Usually
you can look at the template and spot the syntax error. Here are some
common things to look for: missing close tags for
{if}{/if} or
{section}{/section}
, or syntax of logic within an {if} tag. If you
can't find the error, you might have to open the compiled PHP file and
go to the line number to figure out where the corresponding error is in
the template.
Example 20.3. Other common errors
Warning: Smarty error: unable to read resource: "index.tpl" in... or Warning: Smarty error: unable to read resource: "site.conf" in...
The
$template_dir is incorrect, doesn't exist or
the file index.tpl is not in the
templates/ directory
A
{config_load}
function is within a template (or
configLoad()
has been called) and either
$config_dir
is incorrect, does not exist or
site.conf is not in the directory.
Fatal error: Smarty error: the $compile_dir 'templates_c' does not exist,
or is not a directory...
Either the
$compile_diris incorrectly set,
the directory does not exist, or templates_c is a
file and not a directory.
Fatal error: Smarty error: unable to write to $compile_dir '....
The
$compile_dir is not writable by the web server.
See the bottom of the
installing smarty page
for more about permissions.
Fatal error: Smarty error: the $cache_dir 'cache' does not exist,
or is not a directory. in /..
This means that
$caching is enabled and either;
the
$cache_dir
is incorrectly set, the directory does not exist,
or cache/ is a
file and not a directory.
Fatal error: Smarty error: unable to write to $cache_dir '/...
This means that
$caching is
enabled and the
$cache_dir
is not writable by the web server. See the bottom of the
installing smarty page
for permissions.
Warning: filemtime(): stat failed for /path/to/smarty/cache/3ab50a623e65185c49bf17c63c90cc56070ea85c.one.tpl.php in /path/to/smarty/libs/sysplugins/smarty_resource.php
This means that your application registered a custom error hander (using set_error_handler())
which is not respecting the given $errno as it should. If, for whatever reason, this is the desired behaviour of your custom
error handler, please call muteExpectedErrors() after you've registered your
custom error handler.
See also debugging.