PHP 5 hat ein Exceptionmodell ähnlich dem anderer Programmiersprachen. Eine Exception kann in PHP geworfen (throw) und abgefangen (catch) werden. Um das Fangen potentieller Exceptions zu ermöglichen, sollte der jeweilige Code von einem try-Block umschlossen werden. Jeder try-Block muss mindestens einen zugehörigen catch Block besitzen. Mehrere catch-Blöcke können verwendet werden, um verschiedene Klassen von Exceptions abzufangen. Die normale Programmausführung (wenn keine Exception innerhalb des try-Blockes geworfen wird oder kein zur Klasse der geworfenen Exception passendes catch vorhanden ist) wird nach dem letzten in Folge definierten catch-Block fortgesetzt. Exceptions können innerhalb eines catch-Blockes geworfen (oder weitergeworfen) werden.
Wenn eine Exception geworfen wird, wird der Programmcode hinter der auslösenden Anweisung nicht ausgeführt, und PHP versucht, den ersten passenden catch-Block zu finden. Falls eine Exception nicht abgefangen wird, wird ein fataler Fehler mit einer "Uncaught Exception ..."-Nachricht ausgegeben, wenn nicht eine Behandlung mittels set_exception_handler() definiert wurde.
Hinweis:
Interne PHP-Funktionen verwenden in den meisten Fällen Error-Reporting, nur moderne objektorientierte Extensions nutzen Exceptions. Fehler können allerdings einfach mittels ErrorException in eine Exception umgewandelt werden.
Die Standard PHP Library bietet eine große Anzahl eingebauter und direkt verwendbarer Exceptions.
Beispiel #12 Eine Exception werfen
<?php
function inverse($x) {
if (!$x) {
throw new Exception('Division durch Null.');
}
else return 1/$x;
}
try {
echo inverse(5) . "\n";
echo inverse(0) . "\n";
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo 'Exception abgefangen: ', $e->getMessage(), "\n";
}
// Ausführung fortsetzen
echo 'Hallo Welt';
?>
Das oben gezeigte Beispiel erzeugt folgende Ausgabe:
0.2 Exception abgefangen: Division durch Null Hallo Welt
Beispiel #13 Verschachtelte Exceptions
<?php
class MyException extends Exception { }
class Test {
public function testing() {
try {
try {
throw new MyException('foo!');
} catch (MyException $e) {
/* weiterwerfen der Exception */
throw $e;
}
} catch (Exception $e) {
var_dump($e->getMessage());
}
}
}
$foo = new Test;
$foo->testing();
?>
Das oben gezeigte Beispiel erzeugt folgende Ausgabe:
string(4) "foo!"
Be careful when you set variables inside a try block, they are still declared outside the block.
Note that it is the case for every block constructions in PHP, but it can be useful to be aware of it :)
<?php
try {
$a = "blabla";
} catch (Exception $e) {}
echo isset($a) ? ":)" : ":("; // Gives ":)"
echo isset($b) ? ":)" : ":("; // Gives ":("
?>
Watch your namespace if you have created your own exception class.
For example:
Error.php
<?php
namespace Global;
class Error extends Exception {}
?>
Foo.php
<?php
namespace Foo;
try {
$this->foo();
} catch (Error $e) {
echo $e->getMessage();
}
?>
You WILL NOT get an error message if Error is not in the Foo namespace. Instead the Exception will be passed upwards.
Should be:
<?php
try {
$this->foo();
} catch (Global\Error $e) {
echo $e->getMessage();
}
?>
When catching an exception inside a namespace it is important that you escape to the global space:
<?php
namespace SomeNamespace;
class SomeClass {
function SomeFunction() {
try {
throw new Exception('Some Error Message');
} catch (\Exception $e) {
var_dump($e->getMessage());
}
}
}
?>
The PHP documentation has gone from very useful to hideously obstructive.
The people who are rearranging the doc into little, tiny chunks which are hyperlinked all over the place obviously never write code.
I just spent 10 minutes trying to find the name of an IO Exception so I can use it in some code I'm writing.
Old Doc: I would go to the index, click on Exceptions and then scroll down the page (or do a find on IO) and there it would be. 10 seconds tops.
New Doc: Go to the index click on Predefined Exceptions
Click on Exception - find description of Exception Object - info not there
Back Button
Click on Error Exception - find description of Generic ErrorExeption object
Back Button
Click on SPL Exceptions (what the hell is this? - something new?)
Look at Table of contents: 13 Exception Categories - none of which
looks like an IOException
Click on Predefined Exceptions in the See Also -
Back to Previous Useless Page
First You completely screw up the Perl Regular Expression page by chopping it into tiny, obscure chunks and now you destroy the exception documentation.
PLEASE put it back the way it was.
Or get somebody who actually uses this stuff like a handbook while writing code to fix it
Or shoot somebody.
Incredibly frustrated and thinking of rewriting everything in Python,
Mike Howard <mike at clove dot com>
If you are using exceptions, code which will store uncaught exceptions might be nice for you,
for example,
PDO throws an exception, but you thought that this is impossible, so you were not even thinking about using try{...}catch(...){...},
<?php
function exception_handler($exception) {
ob_start();
print_r($GLOBALS);
print_r($exception);
file_put_contents('exceptions.txt', ob_get_clean(). "\n",FILE_APPEND);
}
set_exception_handler('exception_handler');
?>
to save a uncatched exception simply write
<?php throw new Exception('error'); ?>
somewhere in code.
If we have a lot of exceptions, file will get a huge size in few minutes,
but saving this kind of information may save you from, for example, being sql-injected (attempt to try to inject-sql will be saved)
PS PDO ofc. must be set to throw exceptions.
If you intend on creating a lot of custom exceptions, you may find this code useful. I've created an interface and an abstract exception class that ensures that all parts of the built-in Exception class are preserved in child classes. It also properly pushes all information back to the parent constructor ensuring that nothing is lost. This allows you to quickly create new exceptions on the fly. It also overrides the default __toString method with a more thorough one.
<?php
interface IException
{
/* Protected methods inherited from Exception class */
public function getMessage(); // Exception message
public function getCode(); // User-defined Exception code
public function getFile(); // Source filename
public function getLine(); // Source line
public function getTrace(); // An array of the backtrace()
public function getTraceAsString(); // Formated string of trace
/* Overrideable methods inherited from Exception class */
public function __toString(); // formated string for display
public function __construct($message = null, $code = 0);
}
abstract class CustomException extends Exception implements IException
{
protected $message = 'Unknown exception'; // Exception message
private $string; // Unknown
protected $code = 0; // User-defined exception code
protected $file; // Source filename of exception
protected $line; // Source line of exception
private $trace; // Unknown
public function __construct($message = null, $code = 0)
{
if (!$message) {
throw new $this('Unknown '. get_class($this));
}
parent::__construct($message, $code);
}
public function __toString()
{
return get_class($this) . " '{$this->message}' in {$this->file}({$this->line})\n"
. "{$this->getTraceAsString()}";
}
}
?>
Now you can create new exceptions in one line:
<?php
class TestException extends CustomException {}
?>
Here's a test that shows that all information is properly preserved throughout the backtrace.
<?php
function exceptionTest()
{
try {
throw new TestException();
}
catch (TestException $e) {
echo "Caught TestException ('{$e->getMessage()}')\n{$e}\n";
}
catch (Exception $e) {
echo "Caught Exception ('{$e->getMessage()}')\n{$e}\n";
}
}
echo '<pre>' . exceptionTest() . '</pre>';
?>
Here's a sample output:
Caught TestException ('Unknown TestException')
TestException 'Unknown TestException' in C:\xampp\htdocs\CustomException\CustomException.php(31)
#0 C:\xampp\htdocs\CustomException\ExceptionTest.php(19): CustomException->__construct()
#1 C:\xampp\htdocs\CustomException\ExceptionTest.php(43): exceptionTest()
#2 {main}
The internal implementation of Exception.__toString is something like this:
<?php
class MyException extends Exception {
public function __toString() {
return "exception '".__CLASS__ ."' with message '".$this->getMessage()."' in ".$this->getFile().":".$this->getLine()."\nStack trace:\n".$this->getTraceAsString();
}
}
?>
Useful if you want to customize your exception toString format, but not to deviate too much from the built-in one.
‘Normal execution (when no exception is thrown within the try block, *or when a catch matching the thrown exception’s class is not present*) will continue after that last catch block defined in sequence.’
‘If an exception is not caught, a PHP Fatal Error will be issued with an “Uncaught Exception …” message, unless a handler has been defined with set_exception_handler().’
These two sentences seem a bit contradicting about what happens ‘when a catch matching the thrown exception’s class is not present’ (and the second sentence is actually correct).
As a response to Anonymous on 28-Dec-2007 07:25, please, remember that creating lots of MyXExtension classes is wrong if and only if your object oriented model is not well designed.
One should (I even think MUST) create as many custom Exception extentions as the design needs, because every different type of exception requires (or will require, even if we haven't think about it) a different response, from showing different messages to the user, to log error messages or even kill the script.
Forwarding can become confusing if you are using a big number of classes and packages, and is useless if you are using few (unless you are too lasy to write 3, 5 or 10 includes and their respective Exception classes).
Remember that object orientation was created to give more semantics to the programming code so the programmer understands better what is written without having to excecute the code, so don't do things that go against that, which is the cool thing about object orientation.
Actually it isn't possible to do:
<?php
someFunction() OR throw new Exception();
?>
This leads to a T_THROW Syntax Error. If you want to use this kind of exceptions, you can do the following:
<?php
function throwException($message = null,$code = null) {
throw new Exception($message,$code);
}
someFunction() OR throwException();
?>
@webmaster at asylum-et dot com
What Mo is describing is bug 44053 (http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=44053) in which exceptions cannot be caught if you are using a custom error handler to catch warnings, notices, etc.
Just to be more precise in what Frank found:
Catch the exceptions always in order from the bottom to the top of the Exception and subclasses class hierarchy. If you have class MyException extending Exception and class My2Exception extending MyException always catch My2Exception before MyException.
Hope this helps
If you are going to use multiple catches within a try-catch then do not forget the stacking order of those catches!
This is important as any classes that extend the Exception class, like MyException in example 20.3, will be caught in the Exception case. This is because your newly extended class also has a class type of Exception. This baffled me for awhile as the examples here worked but mine didn't because my first catch was trying to catch Exception.
Example:
<?php
/**
* My1Exception extends Exception
* My2Exception extends Exception
*/
/**
* This will always fall in the first exception
*/
try {
throw new My1Exception("My fail english? That's unpossible", 69);
} catch (Exception $e) {
print "Incorrect Exception";
} catch (My1Exception $e) {
print "Correct Exception but I won't be here";
} catch (My2Exception $e) {
print "Again, incorrect";
}
/**
* Whereas here, the catch stacking order was changed so our throw will cascade into the correct catch
*/
try {
throw new My1Exception("My cat's breath smells like cat food", 69);
} catch (My2Exception $e) {
print "Incorrect Exception";
} catch (My1Exception $e) {
print "Correct Exception and I WILL be printed";
} catch (Exception $e) {
print "Again, incorrect";
}
?>
So, ALWAYS keep the Exception catch block at the bottom, then any of the other extended exceptions that extend from Exception, then any of your other extended exceptions that extend from those extended exceptions, etc
@serenity: of course you need to throw exception within the try block, catch will not watch fatal errors, nor less important errors but only exceptions that are instanceof the exception type you're giving. Of course by within the try block, i mean within every functions call happening in try block.
For example, to nicely handle old mysql errors, you can do something like this:
<?php
try
{
$connection = mysql_connect(...);
if ($connection === false)
{
throw new Exception('Cannot connect do mysql');
}
/* ... do whatever you need with database, that may mail and throw exceptions too ... */
mysql_close($connection);
}
catch (Exception $e)
{
/* ... add logging stuff there if you need ... */
echo "This page cannot be displayed";
}
?>
By doing so, you're aiming at the don't repeat yourself (D.R.Y) concept, by managing error handling at only one place for the whole.
I've found that exception destructors are not called unless the exception is caught.
I've created a simple solution to this problem (calling __destruct() from __toString() ) and have written up a lengthy article detailing one good use case for this method at http://ioreader.com/2007/06/14/taking-advantage-of-exceptions-in-php5/
Also, one of the useful things about using a destructor as a clean up method is that it is called at the end of a catch statement.
Further to dexen at google dot me dot up with "use destructors to perform a cleanup in case of exception". The fact that PHP5 has destructors, exception handling, and predictable garbage collection (if there's a single reference in scope and the scope is left then the destructor is called immediately) allows for the use of the RAII idiom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_Acquisition_Is_Initialization and my own http://www.hackcraft.net/RAII/ describe this.
Summary:
* use destructors to perform a cleanup in case of exception.
PHP calls method __destruct() on instance of class when variable storing the instance goes out-of-scope (or gets unset). This works for function leave by Exception, aside of plain return. (same as for C++, AFAIK)
aFunction() {
$i = new LockerClass();
throw new MinorErrorEx('Warn user & perform some other activity');
// $i->__destruct() gets called before stack unwind begins, unlocking whatever get locked by new LockerClass();
return $bar;
}
(A lengthy) example:
Let's say you need to perform a series of operaions on SQL database that should not get disrupted. You lock the tables:
<?php
function updateStuff() {
DB::query('LOCK TABLES `a`, `b`, `c` WRITE');
/* some SQL Operations */
someFunction();
/* more SQL Operations */
DB::query('UNLOCK TABLES');
} ?>
Now, let's supouse that someFunction() may throw an exception. This would leave us with the tables locked, as the second DB::query() will not get called. This pretty much will cause the next query to fail. You can do it like:
<?php
function updateStuff() {
DB::query('LOCK TABLES `a`, `b` WRITE');
/* some SQL Operations */
try {
someFunction(); }
catch ( Exception $e ) {
DB::query('UNLOCK TABLES');
throw $e;
}
/* more SQL Operations */
DB::query('UNLOCK TABLES')
} ?>
However, this is rather ugly as we get code duplication. And what if somebody later modifies updateStuff() function in a way it needs another step of cleanup, but forget to add it to catch () {}? Or when we have multiple things to be cleaned up, of which not all will be valid all the time?
My solution using destructor: i create an instance of class DB holding a query unlocking tables which will be executed on destruction.
<?php
function updateStuff() {
$SQLLocker = DB::locker( /*read lock list*/array('a', 'b'), /*write lock list*/array('b') );
/* some SQL Operations */
someFunction();
/* $SQLLocker gets destructed there if someFunction() throws an exception */
DB::query('UNLOCK TABLES');
/* other SQL Operations */
/* $SQLLocker gets destructed there if someFunction() does not throw an exception */
}
class DB {
function locker ( $read, $write ) {
DB::query( /*locks*/);
$ret = new DB;
$ret->onDestruct = 'UNLOCK TABLES';
return $ret;
}
function _destructor() {
if ( $this->onDestruct )
DB::query($this->onDestruct);
}
}
?>
Sometimes you want a single catch() to catch multiple types of Exception. In a language like Python, you can specify multiple types in a catch(), but in PHP you can only specify one. This can be annoying when you want handle many different Exceptions with the same catch() block.
However, you can replicate the functionality somewhat, because catch(<classname> $var) will match the given <classname> *or any of it's sub-classes*.
For example:
<?php
class DisplayException extends Exception {};
class FileException extends Exception {};
class AccessControl extends FileException {}; // Sub-class of FileException
class IOError extends FileException {}; // Sub-class of FileException
try {
if(!is_readable($somefile))
throw new IOError("File is not readable!");
if(!user_has_access_to_file($someuser, $somefile))
throw new AccessControl("Permission denied!");
if(!display_file($somefile))
throw new DisplayException("Couldn't display file!");
} catch (FileException $e) {
// This block will catch FileException, AccessControl or IOError exceptions, but not Exceptions or DisplayExceptions.
echo "File error: ".$e->getMessage();
exit(1);
}
?>
Corollary: If you want to catch *any* exception, no matter what the type, just use "catch(Exception $var)", because all exceptions are sub-classes of the built-in Exception.
This code will turn php errors into exceptions:
<?php
function exceptions_error_handler($severity, $message, $filename, $lineno) {
throw new ErrorException($message, 0, $severity, $filename, $lineno);
}
set_error_handler('exceptions_error_handler');
?>
However since <?php set_error_handler()?> doesn't work with fatal errors, you will not be able to throw them as Exceptions.
PHP5 supports exception throwing inside a function, and catching it outside that function call. There is no mention of this in documentation but it works just fine, as tested by this sample code:
<?php
function exceptionFunction() {
throw new Exception("Throwing an exception!");
}
try {
exceptionFunction();
} catch (Exception $e) {
echo "Exception caught!\n";
}
?>
The result in PHP 5.0.3 is "Exception caught!"
Further tests show that nested functions with exceptions, methods throwing exceptions, etc all work the same way. This is like declaring all classes (or methods) in Java as "class ClassName throws Exception". While I consider this a good thing, you should be aware that any thrown exception will propagate up your stack until it is either caught or runs out of stack.