PHP Make Exception Accept Messages of Array and Object Type

Question

I'm trying to pass an array to the Exception class and I get an error stating:

PHP Fatal error:  Wrong parameters for Exception([string $exception [, long $code [, Exception $previous = NULL]]])

Obviously, this means that the standard Exception class does not handle these variable types, so I would like to extend the Exception class to a custom exception handler that can use strings, arrays, and objects as the message type.

class cException extends Exception {

   public function __construct($message, $code = 0, Exception $previous = null) {
      // make sure everything is assigned properly
      parent::__construct($message, $code, $previous);
   }

}

What needs to happen in my custom exception to reformat the $message argument to allow for these variable types?

Answer 1

It depends on how you want your message to work. The simplest way would be to add some code to the constructor that converts the message to a string depending on the type. Just using print_r is the easiest. Try adding this before passing to the parent __construct.

$message = print_r($message, 1);

Answer 2

Add a custom getMessage() function to your custom exception, since it's not possible to override the final getMessage.

class CustomException extends Exception{
    private $arrayMessage = null;
    public function __construct($message = null, $code = 0, Exception $previous = null){
        if(is_array($message)){
            $this->arrayMessage = $message;
            $message = null;
        }
        $this->exception = new Exception($message,$code,$previous);
    }
    public function getCustomMessage(){
        return $this->arrayMessage ? $this->arrayMessage : $this->getMessage();
    }
}

When catching the CustomException, call getCustomMessage() which will return whatever you've passed in the $message parameter

try{
    ..
}catch(CustomException $e){
    $message $e->getCustomMessage();
}