phpfatal-errortype-hinting

How can I catch a "catchable fatal error" on PHP type hinting?


I am trying to implement Type Hinting of PHP5 on one of my class,

class ClassA {
    public function method_a (ClassB $b)
    {}
}

class ClassB {}
class ClassWrong{}

Correct usage:

$a = new ClassA;
$a->method_a(new ClassB);

producing error:

$a = new ClassA;
$a->method_a(new ClassWrong);

Catchable fatal error: Argument 1 passed to ClassA::method_a() must be an instance of ClassB, instance of ClassWrong given...

Is it possible to catch that error(since it says "catchable")? and if yes, how?


Solution

  • Update: This is not a catchable fatal error anymore in php 7. Instead an "exception" is thrown. An "exception" (in scare quotes) that is not derived from Exception but Error; it's still a Throwable and can be handled with a normal try-catch block. see https://wiki.php.net/rfc/throwable-interface

    E.g.

    <?php
    class ClassA {
      public function method_a (ClassB $b) { echo 'method_a: ', get_class($b), PHP_EOL; }
    }
    class ClassWrong{}
    class ClassB{}
    class ClassC extends ClassB {}
    
    
    foreach( array('ClassA', 'ClassWrong', 'ClassB', 'ClassC') as $cn ) {
        try{
          $a = new ClassA;
          $a->method_a(new $cn);
        }
        catch(Error $err) {
          echo "catched: ", $err->getMessage(), PHP_EOL;
        }
    }
    echo 'done.';
    

    prints

    catched: Argument 1 passed to ClassA::method_a() must be an instance of ClassB, instance of ClassA given, called in [...]
    catched: Argument 1 passed to ClassA::method_a() must be an instance of ClassB, instance of ClassWrong given, called in [...]
    method_a: ClassB
    method_a: ClassC
    done.
    

    Old answer for pre-php7 versions:
    https://www.php.net/manual/en/errorfunc.constants.php#constant.e-recoverable-error says:

    E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR ( integer )
    Catchable fatal error. It indicates that a probably dangerous error occured, but did not leave the Engine in an unstable state. If the error is not caught by a user defined handle (see also set_error_handler()), the application aborts as it was an E_ERROR.

    see also: http://derickrethans.nl/erecoverableerror.html

    e.g.

    function myErrorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) {
      if ( E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR===$errno ) {
        echo "'catched' catchable fatal error\n";
        return true;
      }
      return false;
    }
    set_error_handler('myErrorHandler');
    
    class ClassA {
      public function method_a (ClassB $b) {}
    }
    
    class ClassWrong{}
    
    $a = new ClassA;
    $a->method_a(new ClassWrong);
    echo 'done.';
    

    prints

    'catched' catchable fatal error
    done.
    

    edit: But you can "make" it an exception you can handle with a try-catch block

    function myErrorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) {
      if ( E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR===$errno ) {
        echo "'catched' catchable fatal error\n";
        throw new ErrorException($errstr, $errno, 0, $errfile, $errline);
        // return true;
      }
      return false;
    }
    set_error_handler('myErrorHandler');
    
    class ClassA {
      public function method_a (ClassB $b) {}
    }
    
    class ClassWrong{}
    
    try{
      $a = new ClassA;
      $a->method_a(new ClassWrong);
    }
    catch(Exception $ex) {
      echo "catched\n";
    }
    echo 'done.';
    

    see: https://www.php.net/manual/en/class.errorexception.php