What are best practices for handling error messages and debugging when integrating external content with PHP?

When integrating external content with PHP, it is essential to handle error messages gracefully to provide a better user experience and aid in debugging. One best practice is to use try-catch blocks to catch and handle exceptions that may arise when fetching or processing external content. Additionally, logging errors to a file or database can help in troubleshooting issues.

try {
    // code to fetch and process external content
} catch (Exception $e) {
    // handle the error, log it, and display a user-friendly message
    error_log('Error: ' . $e->getMessage());
    echo 'An error occurred. Please try again later.';
}