set_exception_handler

    (PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

    set_exception_handler — Sets a user-defined exception handler function

    Description

    set_exception_handler(?callable $callback): ?callable

    Sets the default exception handler if an exception is not caught within a try/catch block. Execution will stop after the callback is called.

    Parameters

    callback

    The function to be called when an uncaught exception occurs. This handler function needs to accept one parameter, which will be the Throwable object that was thrown. Both Error and Exception implement the Throwable interface. This is the handler signature:

    handler(Throwable $ex): void

    null may be passed instead, to reset this handler to its default state.

    Return Values

    Returns the previously defined exception handler, or null on error. If no previous handler was defined, null is also returned.

    Examples

    Example #1 set_exception_handler() example

    <?php
    function exception_handler(Throwable $exception) {
    echo     "Uncaught exception: " , $exception->getMessage(), "\n";
    }

    set_exception_handler('exception_handler');

    throw new     Exception('Uncaught Exception');
    echo     "Not Executed\n";
    ?>

    See Also

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    User Contributed Notes 17 notes

    up
    91
    Anonymous
    15 years ago
    Things you should be aware of:

    An exception handler handles exceptions that were not caught before. It is the nature of an exception that it discontinues execution of your program - since it declares an exceptional situation in which the program cannot continue (except you catch it).

    Since it has not been catched your code signals it is not being aware of the situation and cant go on.

    This implies: returning to the script is simply impossible when the exception handler has already been called, since an uncaught exception is not a notice. use your own debug- or notice-log-system for things like that.

    Furthermore: While is is still possible to call functions from your script, since the exception handler has already been called exceptions bubbling from that piece of code won't trigger the exception handler again. php will die without leaving any information apart form "uncaught exception with unknown stack frame". So if you call functions from your script, make sure that you catch any exceptions that possibly occur via try..catch inside the exception handler.

    For those of you who misinterpreted the essential meaning of the exception handler: it's only use is to handle the abortion of your script gracefully, e.g. in a project like facebook or wikipedia: render a nice error page, eventually hiding information which shall not leak into the public (instead you may want to write to your log or mail the sys-admin or stuff like that).

    In other words: Redirecting all php-errors form an error-handler using exceptions - including notices - is a very dumb idea, if you do not intend having your script aborted everytime you didn't set a variable (for example).

    my 2 cents.
    up
    9
    ohcc at 163 dot com
    4 years ago
    As of PHP 7.4, an exception thrown within the user-defined shutdown function can be caught by the user-defined exception handler.

    <?php
    set_error_handler    (
    function(    $level, $error, $file, $line){
    if(    0 === error_reporting()){
    return     false;
    }
    throw new     ErrorException($error, -1, $level, $file, $line);
    },
    E_ALL
    );

    register_shutdown_function(function(){
    $error = error_get_last();
    if(    $error){
    throw new     ErrorException($error['message'], -1, $error['type'], $error['file'], $error['line']);
    }
    });

    set_exception_handler(function($exception){
    // ... more code ...
    });

    require     'NotExists.php';
    up
    19
    Glen
    17 years ago
    If you want a class instance to handle the exception, this is how you do it :

    <?php
    class example {
    public function     __construct() {
    @    set_exception_handler(array($this, 'exception_handler'));
    throw new     Exception('DOH!!');
    }

    public function     exception_handler($exception) {
    print     "Exception Caught: ". $exception->getMessage() ."\n";
    }
    }

    $example = new example;

    ?>

    See the first post (Sean's) for a static example. As Sean points out, the exception_handler function must be declared public.
    up
    9
    pinkgothic at gmail dot com
    14 years ago
    If you're handling sensitive data and you don't want exceptions logging details such as variable contents when you throw them, you may find yourself frustratedly looking for the bits and pieces that make up a normal stack trace output, so you can retain its legibility but just alter a few things. In that case, this may help you:

    <?php

    function exceptionHandler($exception) {

    // these are our templates
    $traceline = "#%s %s(%s): %s(%s)";
    $msg = "PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception '%s' with message '%s' in %s:%s\nStack trace:\n%s\n thrown in %s on line %s";

    // alter your trace as you please, here
    $trace = $exception->getTrace();
    foreach (    $trace as $key => $stackPoint) {
    // I'm converting arguments to their type
    // (prevents passwords from ever getting logged as anything other than 'string')
    $trace[$key]['args'] = array_map('gettype', $trace[$key]['args']);
    }

    // build your tracelines
    $result = array();
    foreach (    $trace as $key => $stackPoint) {
    $result[] = sprintf(
    $traceline,
    $key,
    $stackPoint['file'],
    $stackPoint['line'],
    $stackPoint['function'],
    implode(', ', $stackPoint['args'])
    );
    }
    // trace always ends with {main}
    $result[] = '#' . ++$key . ' {main}';

    // write tracelines into main template
    $msg = sprintf(
    $msg,
    get_class($exception),
    $exception->getMessage(),
    $exception->getFile(),
    $exception->getLine(),
    implode("\n", $result),
    $exception->getFile(),
    $exception->getLine()
    );

    // log or echo as you please
    error_log($msg);
    }

    ?>

    If you're not a fan of sprintf() or the duplicate $exception->getFile() and $exception->getLine() calls you can of course replace that as you like - consider this a mere compilation of the parts.
    up
    12
    mastabog at hotmail dot com
    18 years ago
    A behaviour not documented or discussed enough, yet pretty common is that is that if an exception is thrown from the global exception handler then a fatal error occurs (Exception thrown without a stack frame). That is, if you define your own global exception handler by calling set_exception_handler() and you throw an exception from inside it then this fatal error occurs. It is only natural though, as the callback defined by set_exception_handler() is only called on uncaught (unhandled) exceptions so if you throw one from there then you get this fatal error as there is no exception handler left (you override the php internal one by calling set_exception_handler()), hence no stack frame for it.

    Example:

    <?php

    function myExceptionHandler (Exception $ex)
    {
    throw     $ex;
    }

    set_exception_handler("myExceptionHandler");

    throw new     Exception("This should cause a fatal error and this message will be lost");

    ?>

    Will cause a Fatal error: Exception thrown without a stack frame

    If you skip/comment the set_exception_handler("...") line then the internal PHP global handler will catch the exception and output the exception message and trace (as string) to the browser, allowing you to at least see the exception message.

    While it is a very good idea to always define your own global exception handler by using the set_exception_handler() function, you should pay attention and never throw an exception from it (or if you do then catch it).

    Finally, every serious coder should use an IDE with debugging capabilities. Tracking down an error like this becomes a trivial matter by using simple debugging "Step into" commands (I for one recommend Zend IDE v5.2 at the moment of this writing). I have seen numerous messages on the internet with people wondering why this message pops up.

    Cheers

    p.s. Other causes for this error which are somehow unrelated to this is when you throw an exception from a destructor (the reasons behind that are similar though, the global handler might no longer exist due to the php engine shutting the page down).
    up
    4
    frank at netventures dot com dot au
    17 years ago
    Hey all, i've just started to use the exception suite instead of the normal PHP error suite. For those of you looking for an object orientated way to do this without looking down at Glen and Sean's examples (Lesson 1: ALWAYS read the logs!), here you go:

    <?php

    class NewException extends Exception
    {
    public function     __construct($message, $code=NULL)
    {
    parent::__construct($message, $code);
    }

    public function     __toString()
    {
    return     "Code: " . $this->getCode() . "<br />Message: " . htmlentities($this->getMessage());
    }

    public function     getException()
    {
    print     $this; // This will print the return from the above method __toString()
    }

    public static function     getStaticException($exception)
    {
    $exception->getException(); // $exception is an instance of this class
    }
    }

    set_exception_handler(array("NewException", "getStaticException"));
    throw new     NewException("Catch me!!!", 69);

    ?>

    Let me know if i'm missing something obvious as I left my glasses at home and I just came back from the Melbourne cup (If I won then I wouldn't be at work still!).
    up
    5
    marques at displague dot com
    16 years ago
    frank,

    Your exception handler is configured to be the handler for all exceptions, yet if a basic 'Exception' is thrown, your static method will error because 'Exception's do not have 'getException'. Because of this I don't see a real purpose to making the uncaught handler a class that extends Exception.

    I do like the idea of using static methods of a general Exception handling class.

    <?php
    class ExceptionHandler {
    public static function     printException(Exception $e)
    {
    print     'Uncaught '.get_class($e).', code: ' . $e->getCode() . "<br />Message: " . htmlentities($e->getMessage())."\n";
    }

    public static function     handleException(Exception $e)
    {
    self::printException($e);
    }
    }

    set_exception_handler(array("ExceptionHandler", "handleException"));

    class     NewException extends Exception {}
    try {
    throw new     NewException("Catch me once", 1);
    } catch (    Exception $e) {
    ExceptionHandler::handleException($e);
    }

    throw new     Exception("Catch me twice", 2);
    ?>

    Gives:
    Uncaught NewException, code: 1<br />Message: Catch me once
    Uncaught Exception, code: 2<br />Message: Catch me twice

    There are much more interesting things that can be done like reformating and optionally displaying or emailing them. But this class acts a nice container for those functions.
    up
    4
    Anonymous
    10 years ago
    By default the stack trace is pretty unreadable, so you might want to wrap it in <pre> tags. Here I also wrap it in a <div> and set the class 'alert alert-danger' which are CSS classes in the Bootstrap CSS framework to style them red.
    <?php

    function exception_handler($exception) {
    echo     '<div class="alert alert-danger">';
    echo     '<b>Fatal error</b>: Uncaught exception \'' . get_class($exception) . '\' with message ';
    echo     $exception->getMessage() . '<br>';
    echo     'Stack trace:<pre>' . $exception->getTraceAsString() . '</pre>';
    echo     'thrown in <b>' . $exception->getFile() . '</b> on line <b>' . $exception->getLine() . '</b><br>';
    echo     '</div>';
    }

    set_exception_handler('exception_handler');
    up
    5
    Josef Spak
    10 years ago
    On GNU/Linux, When an exception handler is called, PHP will end with exit status code 0 instead of 255.

    You can change the exit status code with an exit() call at the end of your custom error handler.
    up
    2
    mc-php-doco at oak dot homeunix dot org
    18 years ago
    This seems not to work when calling the PHP binary with the '-r' flag.

    For example, if I run it like this:

    php -r '
    function exception_handler($exception) {
    echo "Uncaught exception: " , $exception->getMessage(), "\n";
    }

    set_exception_handler("exception_handler");

    throw new Exception("Uncaught Exception");
    echo "Not Executed\n";
    '

    Or if I place it in a file and run it like this:

    php -r 'include "./tmp.php";'

    I get a stack trace instead of having the function 'exception_handler' called. If run it like this:

    php tmp.php

    It works fine.

    (Why run code from '-r'? Sometimes it's useful to add stuff around the include like calls to microtime for benchmarks, or to include a library and then call a few functions from the library, all in an ad-hoc way without having to create new files.)

    PHP versions 5.1.2 and 5.0.4.
    up
    2
    sean at seanodonnell dot com
    19 years ago
    Using the 'set_exception_handler' function within a class, the defined 'exception_handler' method must be declared as 'public' (preferrable 'public static' if you use the "array('example', 'exception_handler')" syntax).

    <?php
    class example {
    public function     __construct() {
    @    set_exception_handler(array('example', 'exception_handler'));
    throw new     Exception('DOH!!');
    }

    public static function     exception_handler($exception) {
    print     "Exception Caught: ". $exception->getMessage() ."\n";
    }
    }

    $example = new example;

    echo     "Not Executed\n";
    ?>

    Declaring the 'exception_handler' function as 'private' causes a FATAL ERROR.

    [derick: red. updated statement about static a bit]
    up
    3
    joshua dot boyle-petrie at its dot monash dot edu
    15 years ago
    Thanks to mastabog we know that throwing an exception within the exception handler will trigger a fatal error and a debugging nightmare. To avoid throwing an exception within there should be easy.

    However, if you use a custom error handler to convert errors to ErrorExceptions suddenly there are a multitude of new ways to accidentally throw exceptions within the exception handler.

    <?php
    function error_handler($code, $message, $file, $line)
    {
    if (    0 == error_reporting())
    {
    return;
    }
    throw new     ErrorException($message, 0, $code, $file, $line);
    }
    function     exception_handler($e)
    {
    // ... normal exception stuff goes here
    print $undefined; // This is the underlying problem
    }
    set_error_handler("error_handler");
    set_exception_handler("exception_handler");
    throw new     Exception("Just invoking the exception handler");
    ?>
    Output: Fatal error: Exception thrown without a stack frame in Unknown on line 0

    The best way I have found to avoid this is to wrap up everything in the exception handler in a try/catch block.
    <?php
    function exception_handler($e)
    {
    try
    {
    // ... normal exception stuff goes here
    print $undefined; // This is the underlying problem
    }
    catch (    Exception $e)
    {
    print     get_class($e)." thrown within the exception handler. Message: ".$e->getMessage()." on line ".$e->getLine();
    }
    }
    ?>
    Output: ErrorException thrown within the exception handler. Message: Undefined variable: undefined on line 14

    This speeds up debugging and offers some scalability to any other exceptions accidentally thrown within the exception handler.

    Another solution is to restore the error handler at the beginning of the exception handler. While this is a silver bullet in terms of avoiding the ErrorExceptions, debugging messages then rely on the error_reporting() level and the display_errors directive. Why mention this? It might be preferable for production code since we care more about hiding errors from users than convenient debugging messages.
    up
    1
    Anonymous
    11 years ago
    As of PHP 5.4.11....

    Instead of:

    Output: Fatal error: Exception thrown without a stack frame in Unknown on line 0

    This snippet:

    <?php
    function error_handler($code, $message, $file, $line)
    {
    if (    0 == error_reporting())
    {
    return;
    }
    throw new     ErrorException($message, 0, $code, $file, $line);
    }
    function     exception_handler($e)
    {
    // ... normal exception stuff goes here
    print $undefined; // This is the underlying problem
    }
    set_error_handler("error_handler");
    set_exception_handler("exception_handler");
    throw new     Exception("Just invoking the exception handler");
    ?>

    Now returns:

    Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'ErrorException' with message 'Undefined variable: undefined' in C:\Apache2\htdocs\error\test.php:13 Stack trace: #0 C:\Apache2\htdocs\error\test.php(13): error_handler(8, 'Undefined varia...', 'C:\Apache2\htdo...', 13, Array) #1 [internal function]: exception_handler(Object(Exception)) #2 {main} thrown in C:\Apache2\htdocs\error\test.php on line 13

    So it appears that exceptions thrown within exception handler now bypass exception handler.
    up
    0
    dev at codesatori dot com
    8 years ago
    For those of you wanting to convert PHP errors to ErrorExceptions (useful), but frustrated with the script being halted on every E_NOTICE et al. In your error handler, simply create the ErrorException, and then either throw it (script halted), or pass the object directly (script continues) to your exception handler function.

    <?php
    const EXIT_ON_ALL_PHP_ERRORS = false; // or true

    function proc_error($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline)
    {
    $e = new ErrorException($errstr, 0, $errno, $errfile, $errline);

    if (    EXIT_ON_ALL_PHP_ERRORS) {
    throw     $e; // This will halt your script.
    } else {
    proc_exception($e); // This will let it continue.
    }
    }

    set_error_handler("proc_error");
    set_exception_handler("proc_exception");
    ?>

    You could further customize the error severity level (from $errno, match bitmasks with error level constants) at which the script is halted or allowed to continue. The above simply allows passthru for PHP errors' default behavior.

    If your exception handler is receiving both error ErrorExceptions (with severity level etc.) and other types of uncaught Exceptions, then use a <?php if ($e instanceof ErrorException) { // ... } ?> condition to deal with the variance. I had to further wrap it into a <?php try { $errno = $e->getSeverity(); } catch (Exception $x) { $errno = 0 } ... ?>, because some EE-s were mysteriously lacking the severity level property (yet to dig in and find out why).
    up
    -1
    klaussantana at gmail dot com
    7 years ago
    Hi everyone. I don't know if it is an old behavior of previous versions, but currently you can set exception and error handlers as private or protected methos, if, only if, you call `set_exception_handler()` or `set_error_handler()` within a context that can access the method.

    Example:
    <?PHP
    $Handler     = new class ()
    {
    public function     __construct ()
    {
    set_error_handler([$this, 'HandleError');
    set_exception_handler([$this, 'HandleException']);
    }
    protected function     HandleError ( $Code, $Message, $File = null, $Line = 0, $Context = [] )
    {
    // Handle error here.
    }
    private function     HandleException ( $Exception )
    {
    // Handle exception here.
    }
    }
    ?>

    NOTE: these methods must match the callbacks parameters signatures. I put
    up
    -3
    Anonymous
    15 years ago
    When an uncaught exception is handled, execution does NOT return to the script, but rather (unexpectedly, on my end anyway) terminates.

    I am using set_error_handler() and set_exception_handler() in conjunction for a system I am currently developing (on v5.3.0 with Xampp). Lets say two E_USER_NOTICES are triggered, the script will die after the first one is processed.

    <?php
    set_exception_handler    ( 'exc_handler' );
    function     exc_handler($exception) {
    echo     "Uncaught exception: " , $exception->getMessage(), "\n";
    }
    function     errorone() {
    throw new     Exception("Test 1");
    }
    function     errortwo() {
    throw new     Exception("Test 2");
    }
    function     test() {
    errorone();
    errortwo();
    }
    test();
    test();
    ?>

    Instead of printing (as I'd expect) "Uncaught exception: Text 1\nUncaught exception: Text 2\nUncaught exception: Text 1\nUncaught exception: Text 2\n"

    It is only printed ONCE. I've tried a number of different things, but I can't figure out how to return execution to the script after the EXCEPTION HANDLER has run.

    If anyone has a solution on how to return execution (hence, allow the script to log uncaught exceptions but continue processing) then PLEASE email me! Thanks!
    up
    -2
    ch at westend dot com
    18 years ago
    It seems that although the Exception contains a backtrace itself, the stack for the debug_backtrace() function is empty when entering an exception handler. This is very inconvinient. See bug #36477.
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