Exceptions

PHP 5 has an exception model similar to that of other programming languages. An exception can be thrown, and caught ("catched") within PHP. Code may be surrounded in a try block, to facilitate the catching of potential exceptions. Each try must have at least one corresponding catch block. Multiple catch blocks can be used to catch different classes of exeptions. 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. Exceptions can be thrown (or re-thrown) within a catch block.

When an exception is thrown, code following the statement will not be executed, and PHP will attempt to find the first matching catch block. 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().

The thrown object must be an instance of the Exception class or a subclass of Exception. Trying to throw an object that is not will result in a PHP Fatal Error.

Note:

Internal PHP functions mainly use Error reporting, only modern Object oriented extensions use exceptions. However, errors can be simply translated to exceptions with ErrorException.

Tip

The Standard PHP Library (SPL) provides a good number of built-in exceptions.

Example #12 Throwing an Exception

<?php
function inverse($x) {
    if (!$x) {
        throw new Exception('Division by zero.');
    }
    else return 1/$x;
}

try {
    echo inverse(5) . "\n";
    echo inverse(0) . "\n";
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo 'Caught exception: ',  $e->getMessage(), "\n";
}

// Continue execution
echo 'Hello World';
?>

The above example will output:

0.2
Caught exception: Division by zero.
Hello World

Example #13 Nested Exception

<?php

class MyException extends Exception { }

class Test {
    public function testing() {
        try {
            try {
                throw new MyException('foo!');
            } catch (MyException $e) {
                /* rethrow it */
                throw $e;
            }
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            var_dump($e->getMessage());
        }
    }
}

$foo = new Test;
$foo->testing();

?>

The above example will output:

string(4) "foo!"