PHP 4 version of Java try{} to suppress fatal error?

[ppowell]

		if ($this->isSuccessful && $sql) {
		 $query =& new MySQLQuery($sql, $this->getDBConn()); //  HAVE TO BUILD CUSTOMIZED QUERY HANDLING USING MySQLQuery OBJECT
		 ob_start();
		  $result = $query->getResult();
		  $error = ob_get_contents();
	     	 ob_end_clean();
		 $query = null;
		 if (mysql_error() || preg_match('/Fatal error/i', $error)) {
		  $this->isSuccessful = false;
		  $this->setErrorArray(array('action' => 'The query could not be performed: ' . nl2br(mysql_error())));
		 } else {
		  $_SESSION["${projectAcronym}_sql"] = $sql;							// DON'T FORGET TO STORE THE SQL STATEMENT INTO A SESSION VARIABLE
		  if ($isAllowedSearchResultsReport && $searchResultsReportType && @sizeof($result) > 0) 
		   $_SESSION["${projectAcronym}_search_results"] = serialize($result);	// STORE SEARCH RESULTS IN SEPARATE SESSION TO USE TO GENERATE REPORT
		 }
		}

This code works just fine except in one case: if the user enters information that chokes the MySQL query, producing a rather annoying Fatal Error:

{Quote]Fatal error: Got error 'repetition-operator operand invalid' from regexp using query:[/Quote]

This is due to the regexp portion of the query being malformed by user input. Instead of teaching every single client the right way of entering regular expression patterns in a query (RegExp 101!), I would like to offer up a friendlier way of dealing with this, which I thought would be to suppress the fatal error in this case and produce a friiendlier message and allow code execution to continue, basically the PHP equivalent of the Java try-catch:

try {
// DO STUFF THAT COULD BREAK
} catch (Exception e) {
// DO SOMETHING ELSE
}

What ideas might you have?

Thanx
Phil

[Weedpacket]

Do users need to enter regular expressions at all?

[ppowell]

It is not required, but then doing an advanced search on "green" vs "green.*" will produce different results.

Phil

[Shrike]

Can you not just use PHP 4's [MAN]set_error_handler()[/MAN]. Each type (notice, warning, error etc) can be handled separately.

[ppowell]

I get the following parse error that I can't debug:

Parse error: parse error, expecting `T_VARIABLE' in /ic/include/search_action.inc.php(729) : runtime-created function on line 1

On this line:

if ($this->isSuccessful && $sql) {
		 $query =& new MySQLQuery($sql, $this->getDBConn()); //  HAVE TO BUILD CUSTOMIZED QUERY HANDLING USING MySQLQuery OBJECT

// FOLLOWING LINE IS LINE 729 WHERE THE ERROR OCCURS
		 set_error_handler(create_function("&$this", "$this->isSuccessful = false; $this->setErrorArray(array('action' => 'Error involving keyword'));"), E_USER_ERROR);
		 $result = $query->getResult();	 
		 $query = null;
		 error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE);
		 if (mysql_error() || preg_match('/Fatal error/i', $error)) {
		  $this->isSuccessful = false;
		  $this->setErrorArray(array('action' => 'The query could not be performed: ' . nl2br(mysql_error())));
		 } else {
		  $_SESSION["${projectAcronym}_sql"] = $sql;							// DON'T FORGET TO STORE THE SQL STATEMENT INTO A SESSION VARIABLE
		  if ($isAllowedSearchResultsReport && $searchResultsReportType && @sizeof($result) > 0) 
		   $_SESSION["${projectAcronym}_search_results"] = serialize($result);	// STORE SEARCH RESULTS IN SEPARATE SESSION TO USE TO GENERATE REPORT
		 }
		}

I am sorry I just can't find the error in spite of looking at the manual.

Thanx
Phil