为什么在try-catch中包装的PHP代码上出现错误？

Question

<?php

try {   
    $attrs = $xml->attributes();
    $code = $attrs['_Code'];
}
catch (Exception $e)  
{
    $code = '';
}

?>

Gets me:

Fatal error: Call to a member function attributes() on a non-object on line 6

Why am I getting errors thrown on code wrapped in a try-catch??

---

NOTE: It is possible to avoid this error by using the following code. (The question is not about avoiding the error, but why it's not being caught- still I thought I'd share the non-erroring code anyway)

if (is_object($xml) && method_exists($xml,'attributes')) {
    $attrs = $xml->attributes();
    $code = !empty($attrs['_Code'])?$attrs['_Code']:'';
 }
else {
    $code = '';
}

Answer 1

PHP fatal errors cannot be caught. I don't know the specifics of what you're doing, but you'll have to figure out some other way to test whether $xml->attributes() will work or not.

Also, swallowing every error and not logging it anywhere is bad practice because when stuff starts breaking you won't have any idea of why.

Answer 2

try / catch only works for exceptions , not parse errors. You have to test to make sure that $xml has an attributes method to avoid such an error (could be called a null pointer, but not exactly).