What are best practices for error handling and debugging in PHP scripts, especially when dealing with issues like "Die aufgerufene Website leitet die Anfrage so um, dass sie nie beendet werden kann"?

When encountering issues like "Die aufgerufene Website leitet die Anfrage so um, dass sie nie beendet werden kann" (The requested website redirects the request in such a way that it cannot be completed), it is important to implement proper error handling and debugging techniques in your PHP scripts. One way to address this issue is by checking for infinite redirects and handling them gracefully by setting a maximum redirect limit.

$url = 'http://example.com';
$max_redirects = 5;

function fetch_url($url, $redirects = 0) {
    if ($redirects >= $max_redirects) {
        die('Error: Maximum redirect limit reached');
    }

    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS, $max_redirects);

    $response = curl_exec($ch);

    if ($response === false) {
        die('Error: Unable to fetch URL');
    }

    return $response;
}

echo fetch_url($url);