How do I catch a PHP fatal (`E_ERROR`) error?

Question

I can use set_error_handler() to catch most PHP errors, but it doesn\'t work for fatal (E_ERROR) errors, such as calling a function that doesn\'t e

Answer 1

Nice solution found in Zend Framework 2:

/**
 * ErrorHandler that can be used to catch internal PHP errors
 * and convert to an ErrorException instance.
 */
abstract class ErrorHandler
{
    /**
     * Active stack
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected static $stack = array();

    /**
     * Check if this error handler is active
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public static function started()
    {
        return (bool) static::getNestedLevel();
    }

    /**
     * Get the current nested level
     *
     * @return int
     */
    public static function getNestedLevel()
    {
        return count(static::$stack);
    }

    /**
     * Starting the error handler
     *
     * @param int $errorLevel
     */
    public static function start($errorLevel = \E_WARNING)
    {
        if (!static::$stack) {
            set_error_handler(array(get_called_class(), 'addError'), $errorLevel);
        }

        static::$stack[] = null;
    }

    /**
     * Stopping the error handler
     *
     * @param  bool $throw Throw the ErrorException if any
     * @return null|ErrorException
     * @throws ErrorException If an error has been catched and $throw is true
     */
    public static function stop($throw = false)
    {
        $errorException = null;

        if (static::$stack) {
            $errorException = array_pop(static::$stack);

            if (!static::$stack) {
                restore_error_handler();
            }

            if ($errorException && $throw) {
                throw $errorException;
            }
        }

        return $errorException;
    }

    /**
     * Stop all active handler
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public static function clean()
    {
        if (static::$stack) {
            restore_error_handler();
        }

        static::$stack = array();
    }

    /**
     * Add an error to the stack
     *
     * @param int    $errno
     * @param string $errstr
     * @param string $errfile
     * @param int    $errline
     * @return void
     */
    public static function addError($errno, $errstr = '', $errfile = '', $errline = 0)
    {
        $stack = & static::$stack[count(static::$stack) - 1];
        $stack = new ErrorException($errstr, 0, $errno, $errfile, $errline, $stack);
    }
}

This class allows you to start the specific ErrorHandler sometimes if you need it. And then you can also stop the Handler.

Use this class e.g. like this:

ErrorHandler::start(E_WARNING);
$return = call_function_raises_E_WARNING();

if ($innerException = ErrorHandler::stop()) {
    throw new Exception('Special Exception Text', 0, $innerException);
}

// or
ErrorHandler::stop(true); // directly throws an Exception;

Link to the full class code:
https://github.com/zendframework/zf2/blob/master/library/Zend/Stdlib/ErrorHandler.php

A maybe better solution is that one from Monolog:

Link to the full class code:
https://github.com/Seldaek/monolog/blob/master/src/Monolog/ErrorHandler.php

It can also handle FATAL_ERRORS using the register_shutdown_function function. According to this class a FATAL_ERROR is one of the following array(E_ERROR, E_PARSE, E_CORE_ERROR, E_COMPILE_ERROR, E_USER_ERROR).

class ErrorHandler
{
    // [...]

    public function registerExceptionHandler($level = null, $callPrevious = true)
    {
        $prev = set_exception_handler(array($this, 'handleException'));
        $this->uncaughtExceptionLevel = $level;
        if ($callPrevious && $prev) {
            $this->previousExceptionHandler = $prev;
        }
    }

    public function registerErrorHandler(array $levelMap = array(), $callPrevious = true, $errorTypes = -1)
    {
        $prev = set_error_handler(array($this, 'handleError'), $errorTypes);
        $this->errorLevelMap = array_replace($this->defaultErrorLevelMap(), $levelMap);
        if ($callPrevious) {
            $this->previousErrorHandler = $prev ?: true;
        }
    }

    public function registerFatalHandler($level = null, $reservedMemorySize = 20)
    {
        register_shutdown_function(array($this, 'handleFatalError'));

        $this->reservedMemory = str_repeat(' ', 1024 * $reservedMemorySize);
        $this->fatalLevel = $level;
    }

    // [...]
}