Throwing Exceptions

Question

I have some question and also would to get some feedback on the way I write my code for this function; It validates if a given email already exist in the database and returns a boolean value.

 /** * Validate user existence by email * * @param string $email * * @return boolean */ public static function validateUserByEmail($email) { if(!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)){ throw new InvalidFormatException('An invalid email has been provided!', 100); } try { $connection = new Database(); } catch(DatabasePDOException $e) { throw $e; } if($connection){ $sql = 'SELECT count(1) AS existence FROM userprofile WHERE ename = ?'; $params = array($email); $response = $connection->selectPDOStatement($sql, $params); } if(isset($response)){ return !!$response ? !!$response[0]['existence'] : false; } else { return false; } }

My concerns/questions are as follows:

1) Should I throw an exception in the event of an invalid email format,

if(!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)){ throw new InvalidFormatException('An invalid email has been provided!', 100); }

or should I just return a value?

if(!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)){ return false; }

2) If I am throwing an exception but I am not catching them in the parent functions, am I doing it wrongly?

public function parentFunction($string){ if(validateUserByEmail($string)){ // do something } }

3) Or is the way the function is written completely unnecessary?

Probably belongs over on codereview.stackexchange.com

Phil
– Phil

2015-03-23 03:59:13 +00:00
Commented Mar 23, 2015 at 3:59 — Phil
– Phil, Commented Mar 23, 2015 at 3:59

Sergey Chizhik · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-23 04:59:57Z

Why not? If you need to get more details of happened instead of simple true/false - it's normal. Also you could return error reason by reference. Benefit - you don't need to try/catch block, and higher level can get details. For example.

public static function validateUserByEmail($email, &$error_reason) { $result = true; if(!filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)){ $result = false; $error_reason = 'InvalidEmail'; } ... return $result; }

If you haven't exceptions handler on higher level - it's bad. In case, if you write user-oriented app, you should to know - user don't want your exceptions. :) I can say more - they don't want to see any errors. But always you should provide them human-readable message. If you write some app for yourself - catching exceptions have lower weight. But good message, that explain what happened will be better.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Throwing Exceptions

1 Answer 1

Comments

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Related