Question

I was looking to see what would be the best way to handle errors from functions. Is the “DIE” method appropriate?

ie. php function calls another, for example:

function login(){
     $result = verifyDetails("bob", "password123");
     if($result == "accepted"){
          echo "Welcome bob";
     }else{
          echo "Error!! \n";
          echo $result;
     }
}

function verifyDetails($user, $pass){
     if(empty($user) || empty($pass)){
          die("cannot be empty");
     }

     if($user == "bob" && $pass == "password"){
          return "accepted";
     }else{
          die("username or password incorrect");
     }
}

does the “DIE” method return the message or does everything come to a standstill?

thanks in advance

---

UPDATE

what if the output is not known?

for example. in the above example I have placed “accepted” as the only correct answer.

What if the return is a name or id number.. then you cant really separate the error and correct returns.

thanks again.

---

UPDATE / Possible Solution

function login(){
     $result = verifyDetails("bob", "password123");
     if($result[0] == "SUCCESS"){
          echo "Welcome bob";
     }else if($result[0] == "ERROR"){
          echo "Error!! \n";
          echo $result;
     }else{
          echo "Unknown Error!!";
     }

}

function verifyDetails($user, $pass){
     $msg = array();

     if(empty($user) || empty($pass)){
          $msg[0] = "ERROR";
          $msg[1] = "cannot be empty"
          return $msg;
     }

     if($user == "bob" && $pass == "password"){
          //say $customerID is extracted from a db
          $msg[0] = "SUCCESS";
          $msg[1] = $customerID
          return $msg;
     }else{
          $msg[0] = "ERROR";
          $msg[1] = "username or password incorrect"
          return $msg;
     }
}

ideas & suggestions on the above “possible” solution are welcome

---

UPDATE

Check Shikiryu update 2 answer below for a cleaner version using arrays

Answer 1

die() just echo your message and stop the script because die() is an alias of exit().

In your case, since the password isn’t password but password123, the script will stop just displaying “username or password incorrect”.

But as I can see here, you want a return "cannot be empty";, so that it’ll display :

Error!!
username or password incorrect

(and optionally the rest of the html which die() won’t)

---

Update 2 (ugly way) :

function login(){
     $result = verifyDetails("bob", "password123");
     if(isset($result['success']){ // verifyDetails return true?
          echo $result['success'];
     }else{
          echo "Error!! \n";
          echo $result['error']; // Display the error verifyDetails throws
          // You may want to check if $result['error'] exists.
     }
}

function verifyDetails($user, $pass){
     if(empty($user) || empty($pass)){
          return array('error'=>"cannot be empty");
     }

     if($user == "bob" && $pass == "password"){
          return array('success'=>"Welcome bob");
     }else{
          return array('error'=>"username or password incorrect");
     }
}