hello people,
I believe there is something wrong (or inconsitent) with the way __autoload()
behaves. at the least the current docs don't reflect what I'm seeing.
-
the docs state:
"Exceptions thrown in __autoload function cannot be caught in the catch block and results in a fatal error."
this is not exactly true, I can catch exception throw from __autoload() IF
__autoload() was triggered via call_user_func*(), class_exists() & is_callable()
- if a user error handler is set with
set_error_handler()any errors (at least upto and
including E_WARNING) that occur in a function that triggers (e.g.call_user_func()) __autoload()
will not be given to the error handler function (it never recieves a call) if the
__autoload() it triggered throws an exception (that is not caught inside __autoload().
- I suspect that point 2. is the reason that in some real-world situations even
Fatal Errors are not logged at (to screen or file, regardless of error_reporting/display_error
settings), resulting in a blank screen and no idea as to the cause ... I have seen this
happen repeatedly on different versions/machines/etc since php5 was in beta ... I have
still not be able to reproduce the vanishing Fatal Errors in a simple test script ...
that said on all occasions where nothing was logged for such Fatal Errors (which in
my case are always the result of a class that cannot be found) I could run the same
script via a debugger which then always did show the Fatal Error message ... why would
running the script via a debugger show [Fatal Error] output in the browser window where as
running the script normally [in the browser] results in no output whatsoever?
Anyway I don't really know if anything is wrong, whether the docs need updating, or
whether someone should really look at the situation.
I have written a little 'test suite'[1] with which one can observe __autoload()
behaviour in various configurations ... it comes with little shell script called
'runtests.sh':
$ ./runtests.sh
usage: ./runtests.sh <testset> [--set-err-handler] [--display-errors] [--gen-class] [--no-autoload|--no-throw [--spl-autoload]]
<testset> must be one of: new new2 static class_exists call_user_func call_user_func_array is_callable OR all
--set-err-handler = define a user function to trap php errors.
--display-errors = sets php ini setting display_errors on.
--no-autoload = skip autoloader function definition.
--no-throw = tell the autoloader not to throw the exception.
--spl-autoload = use `spl_autoload_register()` instead of __autoload()
--recurse-autoload = trigger __autoload from within __autoload
--gen-class = to have autoload auto-generate the class (exception will still be thrown)
classes will have __construct(), __call() and __callstatic() methods
- you may export an environment variable $PHP_TEST_BIN to control which php binary used to run the tests
- errors logs are recreated on each run for each <testset> in ./logs/<testset>.log
rgds,
Jochem