Changes to Engine Exceptions in PHP 7.0alpha2+

While updating my PHP 7 talk “What to Expect When You’re Expecting: PHP 7” for the DutchPHP Conference 2 weeks ago I noticed a small but significant change to the new Engine Exceptions feature in the newly release alpha 2.

Prior to alpha 2 and as per the Engine Exceptions RFC the exception hierarchy looked like this:

BaseException (abstract)
 ├── Exception extends BaseException
      ├── ErrorException extends Exception
      └── RuntimeException extends Exception
 └── EngineException extends BaseException
      ├── TypeException extends EngineException
      ├── ParseException extends EngineException
      └── AssertionError extends EngineException

The primary reason for doing this was to ensure two things:

1. That \EngineException‘s didn’t get caught in pre-.7.0 catch-all blocks (i.e. catch (\Exception $e) { } to preserve backwards compatible behavior (fatal erroring appropriately
2. That it was possible to build new catch-all blocks for all both old and new exceptions using catch \BaseException $e) { }

However, for alpha2 this hierarchy changed. Engine Exceptions lost their “Exception” suffix, and became \Error and and \*Error exceptions, and the abstract \BaseException class was changed to a \Throwable interface. This makes the new exception hierarchy look like this:

Throwable interface
 ├── Exception implements Throwable
      ├── ErrorException extends Exception
      └── RuntimeException extends Exception
 └── Error implements Throwable
      ├── TypeError extends Error
      ├── ParseError extends Error
      └── AssertionError extends Error

With these changes, you still cannot create your own exception hierarchy as you cannot implement \Throwable, you must still extend from \Exception or \Error exceptions (or their children), however you can extend \Throwable and (while still extending \Exception or \Error) implement that new interface.

Personally, I prefer this hierarchy, but, as with any pre-release software: everything is subject to change!

Edit:
As pointed out to me on Twitter, there is an RFC for this change: Throwable interface RFC