Killing your scripts: basic error handling with the “die()” statement - PHP

The first example that implements the basics of script-level error handling is based on the popular “die()” statement. For this reason, I’ll write a simple PHP class, which reads contents from a data file. In its basic incarnation, this class looks like this:

class FileReader{
  var $file;
  var $fileDir='fileDir/';
  function FileReader($file){
    $this->file=$file;
  }
  function getContent(){
    return file_get_contents("{$this->fileDir}{$this->file}.php");
  }
}

As I mentioned earlier, the above class implements a trivial file reader. Aside from the constructor, the class exposes only one public method, “getContent()”, which reads the content from a file passed in as an argument to the constructor. As you can see, the class has been coded with no error checking lines, so any object instantiated from it will cause a non-fatal error if the “$file” parameter doesn’t point to a valid file. The lines below show this circumstance:

// instantiate FileReader object
// pass in invalid file to the constructor
$fr=new FileReader('inexistent_file');
// echo file content
echo $fr->getContent();

Warning: file_get_contents(fileDir/.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /path/to/file/exceptions.php on line 4.

Although the example is rather crude, it demonstrates in a nutshell how a class written without any error handler can be easily broken up. Now, in order to implement a basic error handler, I’m going to include some “die()” statements within the class methods, as follows:

class FileReader{
  var $file;
  var $fileDir='fileDir/';
  function FileReader($file){
    if(!file_exists("{$this->fileDir}{$file}.php")){
      die('File '.$file.' not found');
    }
    $this->file=$file;
  }
  function getContent(){
    if(!$content=file_get_contents("{$this->fileDir}{$this->file}.php")){
      die("Unable to read file contents");
    }
    return $content;
  }
}

Now, the class looks subtly better and more efficient. Notice how a couple of “die()” statements allow you to code defensively, and introduce an appreciable difference compared to the earlier version. In this case, if I instantiate a new “file reader” object, by pointing it to an inexistent file, this is what I should get as a result:

// instantiate FileReader object
$fr=new FileReader('inexistent_file');
// echo file content
echo $fr->getContent();

File inexistent_file not found.

As you can see, the above snippet is a little more efficient, because it implements a simple error handling mechanism. Instead of leaving out of control conflictive operations, such as reading file contents, the class is capable at least of stopping program execution if an error occurs. Indeed, this is a considerable improvement from a programming point of view, and certainly didn’t demand any hard work from us.

However, pseudo functions like “die()” statements are rather inflexible. After all, it doesn't always happen that a script must be abruptly terminated. Fortunately, PHP exposes other functions which are more helpful and flexible for handling errors. Considering this, let’s move on and have a look at the PHP built-in “trigger_error()” function, in order to find out how it can be used.