Handling fatal errors in the past has been next to impossible in PHP. A fatal error would not invoke the error handler set by set_error_handler() and would simply halt script execution.

In PHP 7, an exception will be thrown when a fatal and recoverable error ( E_ERROR and E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR ) occurs, rather than halting script execution. Fatal errors still exist for certain conditions, such as running out of memory, and still behave as before by immediately halting script execution. An uncaught exception will also continue to be a fatal error in PHP 7. This means if an exception thrown from an error that was fatal in PHP 5.x goes uncaught, it will still be a fatal error in PHP 7.

Note that other types of errors such as warnings and notices remain unchanged in PHP 7. Only fatal and recoverable errors throw exceptions.

Exceptions thrown from fatal and recoverable errors do not extend Exception . This separation was made to prevent existing PHP 5.x code from catching exceptions thrown from errors that used to halt script execution. Exceptions thrown from fatal and recoverable errors are instances of a new and separate exception class: Error . Like any other exception, Error may be caught and handled and will allow any finally blocks to be executed.

Prior to PHP 7 alpha-2, the exception hierarchy in PHP 7 was different. Fatal and recoverable errors threw instances of EngineException , which did not inherit from Exception . Both Exception and EngineException inherited from BaseException . The hierarchy was revised with the RFC I authored, Throwable Interface. I felt switching to Throwable and Error was important to avoid confusion from classes using the suffix Exception that did not extend Exception , as well as being more concise and appealing names.

Throwable

To unite the two exception branches, Exception and Error both implement a new interface, Throwable .

The new exception hierarchy in PHP 7 is as follows:

interface Throwable |- Exception implements Throwable |- ... |- Error implements Throwable |- TypeError extends Error |- ParseError extends Error |- ArithmeticError extends Error |- DivisionByZeroError extends ArithmeticError |- AssertionError extends Error

PHP 7 exception hierarchy

If Throwable was defined in PHP 7 code, it would look like the code below.

interface Throwable { public function getMessage () : string ; public function getCode () : int ; public function getFile () : string ; public function getLine () : int ; public function getTrace () : array ; public function getTraceAsString () : string ; public function getPrevious () : Throwable ; public function __toString () : string ; }

Throwable interface

This interface should look familiar. Throwable specifies methods nearly identical to those of Exception . The only difference is that Throwable::getPrevious() can return any instance of Throwable instead of just an Exception . The constructors of Exception and Error accept any instance of Throwable as the previous exception.

Throwable may be used in try/catch blocks to catch both Exception and Error objects (or any possible future exception types). Remember that it is better practice to catch more specific exception classes and handle each accordingly. However, some situations warrant catching any exception (such as for logging or framework error handling). In PHP 7, these catch-all blocks should catch Throwable instead of Exception .

try { // Code that may throw an Exception or Error. } catch ( Throwable $t ) { // Handle exception }

Throwable may be used for catch-all try/catch blocks in PHP 7

User-defined classes cannot implement Throwable . This choice was made in part for predictability and consistency: only instances of Exception or Error may be thrown. Additionally, exceptions carry information about where the object was created in the stack trace. A user-defined object does not automatically have parameters to store this information.

Throwable can be extended to create package-specific interfaces or add additional methods. An interface extending Throwable can only be implemented by a class extending either Exception or Error .

interface MyPackageThrowable extends Throwable {} class MyPackageException extends Exception implements MyPackageThrowable {} throw new MyPackageException ();

Extending Throwable to make a package-specific exception interface

Error

Virtually all errors in PHP 5.x that were fatal errors or recoverable fatal errors now throw instances of Error in PHP 7. Like any other exception, Error objects can be caught using a try/catch block.

$var = 1 ; try { $var -> method (); // Throws an Error object in PHP 7. } catch ( Error $e ) { // Handle error }

Catching Error objects

Usually an instance of the base Error class is thrown from previously fatal errors, but some errors will throw a more specific subclass of Error : TypeError , ParseError , and AssertionError .

TypeError

A TypeError instance is thrown when a function argument or return value does not match a type declaration.

function add ( int $left , int $right ) { return $left + $right ; } try { $value = add ( 'left' , 'right' ); } catch ( TypeError $e ) { echo $e -> getMessage (), "

" ; }

TypeErrors are thrown from mis-matched parameter or return types.

Argument 1 passed to add() must be of the type integer, string given

Output of the example above

ParseError

A ParseError is thrown when an included/required file or eval() 'd code contains a syntax error.

try { require 'file-with-parse-error.php' ; } catch ( ParseError $e ) { echo $e -> getMessage (), "

" ; }

ParseErrors are thrown from include/require statements or eval()'d code with parse errors

ArithmeticError

An ArithmeticError is thrown in two situations: bit shifting by a negative number or calling intdiv() with a numerator of PHP_INT_MIN and denominator of -1 (the expression using the division ( / ) operator, PHP_INT_MIN / -1 , will return a float).

try { $value = 1 << - 1 ; } catch ( ArithmeticError $e ) { echo $e -> getMessage (), "

" ; }

ArithmeticError is thrown from negative bit shifts.

DivisionByZeroError

A DivisionByZeroError is thrown from intdiv() when the denominator is zero or when zero is used as the denominator with the modulo ( % ) operator. Note that using zero with the division ( / ) operator only issues a warning and evaluates to NaN if the numerator is zero or Inf for any non-zero numerator.

try { $value = 1 % 0 ; } catch ( DivisionByZeroError $e ) { echo $e -> getMessage (), "

" ; }

Modulo will throw a DivisionByZeroError if the denominator is zero.

AssertionError

When the condition set by assert() is not met, an AssertionError will be thrown.

ini_set ( 'zend.assertions' , 1 ); ini_set ( 'assert.exception' , 1 ); $test = 1 ; assert ( $test === 0 );

An AssertionError is thrown if the condition in assert() is not met and assert.exception = 1

Fatal error: Uncaught AssertionError: assert($test === 0)

Output of the example above

assert() is only executed and will only throw an AssertionError if assertions are enabled and set to throw exceptions with ini settings zend.assertions = 1 and assert.exception = 1 .

Using Error in Your Code

Users are able to create Error as well as extend Error to create your own hierarchy of Error classes. This poses an important question: what situations should throw an instance of a class extending Exception and what situations should throw an instance of a class extending Error ?

Error should be used to represent coding issues that require the attention of a programmer. Error objects thrown from the PHP engine fall into this category, as they generally result from coding errors such as providing a parameter of the wrong type to a function or a parse error in a file. Exception should be used for conditions that can be safely handled at runtime where another action can be taken and execution can continue.

Since Error objects should not be handled at runtime, catching Error objects should be uncommon. In general, Error objects should only be caught for logging, performing any necessary cleanup, and display an error message to the user.

Writing Code to Support PHP 5.x and 7 Exceptions

To catch any exception in PHP 5.x and 7 with the same code, multiple catch blocks can be used, catching Throwable first, then Exception . Once PHP 5.x support is no longer needed, the block catching Exception can be removed.

try { // Code that may throw an Exception or Error. } catch ( Throwable $t ) { // Executed only in PHP 7, will not match in PHP 5.x } catch ( Exception $e ) { // Executed only in PHP 5.x, will not be reached in PHP 7 }

Writing catch-all block compatible with both PHP 5.x and 7