catching exception using a variable passed by reference

Hi:
  after a deep look,  I think it's not a bug.

  the exception in the catch block is only a local var of that block.
Not sure this makes sense to me. PHP does not have block scopes; all
variables in a function are in the same scope. For example the
$exception variable will also be available after the catch block. So
to me it would make sense if the outer variable would be changed :)

Nikita

Hi Laruence,

the solution you suggest would work though it makes it all a bit more
verbose...
I noticed also that the original variable is completely removed from the
function scope, which is probably a bug.
I'll raise a ticket, thank you ;-)

Devis

Hi,

I stumbled upon this code while working with a variable passed by
reference, I was wondering if someone could provide some feedback before
raising a ticket, just in case PHP (5.3.6) is doing what it's supposed
to
do.
In the code below I would expect "catch" to change the variable as
an assignment would do, but that doesn't happen.

function foo(&$exception)

{
try {
throw new Exception('foo error');
} catch (Exception $exception) {
var_dump(gettype($exception));
echo $exception->getMessage() . "\n";
}
}
foo($error);
var_dump(gettype($error));

Expected:

string(6) "object"
foo error
string(6) "object"

Current result:

string(6) "object"
foo error
string(4) "NULL"

It looks like "catch" is creating a completely new variable in the
scope,
also removing the existing one from it.
Hi:
after a deep look, I think it's not a bug.

the exception in the catch block is only a local var of that block.

I think you should change you codes like following to accomplish
your requirement:

function foo(&$exception)
{
try {
throw new Exception('foo error');
} catch (Exception $e) {
var_dump(gettype($e));
$exception = $e;
echo $e->getMessage() . "\n";
}
}
foo($error);
var_dump(gettype($error));

thanks

Hi,

could you file a bug at bugs.php.net? :)

thanks

I appreciate this is an edge case, if not a bug is it worth adding it to
http://php.net/manual/en/language.exceptions.php or somewhere under
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.references.php ?

Thank you!

--
Laruence Xinchen Hui
http://www.laruence.com/

--
Laruence Xinchen Hui
http://www.laruence.com/