How to catch exceptions in your ZF2 controllers?

Question

I've setup the ZendSkeletonApplication with ZF 2.0.3 and I am unable to catch exceptions in my controllers. For instance if I put the below piece of code in module/Application/src/Application/Controller/IndexController.php:

public function indexAction() {
    echo "BEFORE\n";
    try {
        throw new \Exception("My exception");
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        echo "Caught exception $e\n";
        exit;
    }

and access the page I get:

BEFORE
An error occurred
An error occurred during execution; please try again later.
Additional information:
Exception

File:

    module/Application/src/Application/Controller/IndexController.php:25

Message:

    My exception

the ViewModel kicks in and displays the exception, effectively preventing me from catching it.

How can I catch exceptions in ZF2 controllers?

Solution

You are throwing PHP's generic Exception

throw new \Exception("My exception");

but you catch the Exception from the current namespace

} catch (Exception $e) {

Assuming your controller is in Application\Controller, you either have to declare

use \Exception;

above your class to import the global Exception into the current namespace or

} catch (\Exception $e) {

to catch PHP's global Exception.

Comments

[Max]

Side questions: will doing catch (\Exception $e) { catch every exception that may occur, or just those that extend the Exception class (e.g. would it catch class ORMException extends Exception?) If not, is there a way of catching any exception (and is it worth trying to do so, since I assume libraries that are probably coded should extend Exception for their custom exception handling, or am I mistaken?)

[Sam]

See GordonMs comment for that

[Gordon]

@user since all Exceptions extend PHP's global Exception, catch \Exception will catch any exception.