php try catch not working properly

I have code like this:

try {   
    $providerError = false;
    $providerErrorMessage = null;
    $nbg_xml_url = "http://www.somesite.com/rss.php";
    $xml_content = file_get_contents($nbg_xml_url);
    // ... some code stuff
} catch (Exception $e) {
    $providerError = true;
    $providerErrorMessage = $e -> getMessage();
    $usd = 1;
    $rate = null;
    $gel = null;
} finally {
    // .. Write in db 
}`

and problem is that, when file_get_contents can not read url (may be site not responding or something like this..) my code writes error: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! and execution goes direct to finally block bypass catch block without entering in it..

any ideas?

Answer

You can set an empty error handler to prevent the warning and afterward throw a custom exception in case of failure. In this case I would write a custom file_get_content like so:

function get_file_contents($url) {

    $xml_content = file_get_contents($url);

    if(!$xml_content) {
        throw new Exception('file_get_contents failed');
    }

    return $xml_content;
} 

and would use it in your block:

set_error_handler(function() { /* ignore errors */ });

try {   
    $providerError = false;
    $providerErrorMessage = null;
    $nbg_xml_url = "http://www.somesite.com/rss.php";

    $xml_content = get_file_contents($nbg_xml_url); //<----------

    // ... some code stuff
} catch (Exception $e) {
    $providerError = true;
    $providerErrorMessage = $e -> getMessage();
    $usd = 1;
    $rate = null;
    $gel = null;
} finally {
    // .. Write in db 
}

Then remember to restore the error handler calling:

restore_error_handler();

Note that when using your own error handler it will bypass the

error_reporting

setting and all errors included notices, warnings, etc., will be passed to it.