CodeIgniter and throwing exceptions
Just FYI, I don't use exceptions in CodeIgniter tho I'm using them a lot in Kohana, just because the framework throws them and everything is designed to work with exceptions unlike CodeIgniter. Using exceptions is a good practice providing all your classes/framework are designed to work with them.
I don't (really, DON'T) want to enter in framework comparison discussions, but I need to compare two pieces of code to clarify your question, one piece from CI2 and another from Kohana 3 (it born as a branch of CI with better object oriented implementation).
You'll see this CI2 code...
try{ $result = $this->db->insert('entries', $this->input->post()); // This is not useful. if ( ! $result) { throw new Exception(); }}catch (Exception $e){ // Do something}
It's not very useful. Compare with this Kohana 3 code:
try{ $entry = ORM::factory('blog'); $entry->values(Request::current()->post()); $entry->save();}catch (ORM_Validation_Exception $e){ Session::instance()->set('form_errors', $e->errors(TRUE));}
You'll see this is useful, you don't throw the exception, it's thrown by the class that handles the record saving and $e->errors
has all the validation errors. When everything is designed to work with exceptions, you can be sure it's a good practice and a very convenient one. But it's not the case of CI2, so maybe I should say go ahead without using exceptions.
A possible approach to exceptions in CI...
try{ $this->load->model('blog'); $this->blog->save_entry($this->input->post()); // Handle validation inside the model with the Form_validation library}catch (Validation_Exception $e) // You throwed your custom exception with the failed validation information{ // Do something with your custom exception like the kohana example $this->session->set('form_errors', $e->errors());}
I hope everything is understandable and maybe there's someone with another interesting opinion and a more efficient implementation. Bye.