Question

I am very new to programming in general, while reading about PHP I saw try {} and catch {} and was wondering if anyone could help me with what they mean?

Answer 1

Entry level primer to exceptions:

function doSomething($arg1)
{
    if (empty($arg1)) {
        throw new Exception(sprintf('Invalid $arg1: %s', $arg1));
    }

    // Reached this point? Sweet lets do more stuff
    ....
}

try {

    doSomething('foo');

    // Above function did not throw an exception, I can continue with flow execution
    echo 'Hello world';

} catch (Exception $e) {
    error_log($e->getMessage());
}

try {

    doSomething();

    // Above function DID throw an exception (did not pass an argument)
    // so flow execution will skip this
    echo 'No one will never see me, *sad panda*';

} catch (Exception $e) {
    error_log($e->getMessage());
}

// If you make a call to doSomething outside of a try catch, php will throw a fatal
//  error, halting your entire application
doSomething();

By placing function/method calls within a try/catch block you can control the flow execution of your application.