Question

I have a function:

public function CustomerRating() {
     $result = $db->query("...");
     $row = $result->fetch_assoc();

     if($row)
          $output = $row['somefield'];
     } else {
          $output = "error";
     }

     return $output;
}

//somewhere on another page...
if(is_numeric($class->CustomerRating()) {
     echo $class->CustomerRating;
} else {
      echo "There is an error with this rating.";
}

Is there a better way to find errors? In this function, if no rows are returned, it doesn’t mean an “error” per se, it simply means the value can’t be calculated. When I check for the result of a function, I feel like there is a better way to check the data being returned before I display it in the if function. What’s the best way to do this? I’d like to return a “false”, but how would I check for that when calling the function? Thanks!

Answer 1

There are (in my opinion) 2 common ways:

1. Returning false
   Many builtin PHP functions do that

2. Using SPL exceptions
   Evolved PHP frameworks (Symfony2, ZF2, …) do that