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PHP › Error & Exception Handling

How does a try catch block work in PHP, and how do you catch and handle a specific exception that might be thrown?

Beginner

Answer

A try catch block lets you wrap code that might throw an exception inside a try section, and if an exception occurs, execution immediately jumps to a matching catch block that specifies the type of exception it handles, letting you respond to that specific error condition, such as displaying a user friendly message or logging the issue, without the entire script crashing due to an unhandled exception.
try {
    $data = json_decode($jsonString, flags: JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR);
} catch (JsonException $e) {
    echo 'Invalid JSON: ' . $e->getMessage();
}
Real-world example An API endpoint that parses incoming JSON data wraps the parsing logic in a try catch block, gracefully returning a clear error message to the client if the submitted JSON is malformed, rather than the entire request failing with an unhandled error.

Common follow-ups: Can a single try block have multiple catch blocks for different exception types?;What is the difference between catching a specific exception type versus a general Exception?

JSON Handling in PHP;RESTful API Development with PHP
All 7 Error & Exception Handling questions