Question

I have a custom class that, when called, will redirect to a page and send a ‘message_type’ and ‘message’ variable via GET. When the page opens it checks for these variables and displays a ‘success’, ‘warning’, or ‘error’ message depending on the ‘message_type’ variable. I made it so the user thinks they stay on the same page. It also allows for other variables to be passed along with the message.

Is this good practice, or should I just start using exceptions?

Example:

//Call a static function that will redirect to a page, with an error message
RedirectWithMessage::go('somepage.php', MessageType::ERROR, 'Error message here.');

The following checkMessage() function is an include file:

function checkMessage()
{
    if((isset($_GET['message_type']) && strlen($_GET['message_type'])) && (isset($_GET['message']) && strlen($_GET['message_type'])))
    {
        DisplayMessage::display($_GET['message_type'], $_GET['message']);
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}

On the page that is redirected to, call checkMessage();

//If a message is received, display it. If not, do nothing
checkMessage();

I know this might be vague, and I can supply more code if necessary. I guess the issue is that I don’t have much experience using exceptions, but I think they seem cumbersome (writing try-catch blocks everywhere). Please let me know if I am making this more difficult for myself or if there is a better solution.

Thanks!
Mike

Answer 1

I think it’s a good way to do it, I do something very similar, although I store the relevant error info in their session ($_SESSION) instead, and clear it right after it’s displayed. That keeps it out of the query string, and makes it so if they refresh the page the error goes away