Zend Framework Exception Handling

First is registering the plugin. That's super easy.

// Set up controller
$frontController = Zend_Controller_Front::getInstance();
$frontController->throwExceptions(true)
                ->registerPlugin(new Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler());

For production, you probably want to turn off the front controller's abililty to throw exceptions.

Next is my error controller. By default, the Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler looks for the error controller in your default controllers directory. Mine is located at /modules/default/controllers/ErrorController.php and looks like this:

class ErrorController extends MDJP_Controller_Action
{
    /**
     * Should we display the errors?
     *
     * @var boolean
     */
    protected $_displayErrors = true;

    /**
     * The error handler
     *
     * @var Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler
     */
    protected $_error = null;

    /**
     * Controller init method
     */
    public function init()
    {
        if ($this->getInvokeArg('displayErrors') == true) {
            $this->_displayErrors = true;
        }

        $this->_error = $this->getRequest()->getParam('error_handler');
    }

    /**
     * Default action of the Zend_Controller_Plugin_ErrorHandler
     */
    public function errorAction()
    {
        // Clear previous content
        $this->getResponse()->clearBody();

        // This method delegates to others so there is no template for it
        $this->getHelper('ViewRenderer')->setNoRender();

        switch ($this->_error->type) {
            case 'EXCEPTION_NO_CONTROLLER':
            case 'EXCEPTION_NO_ACTION':
                $this->_forward('not-found');
                return;
            case 'EXCEPTION_OTHER':
                $this->_forward('server-error');
                return;
        }
    }

    /**
     * Handle a missing controller or action
     *
     * If displaying errors, we include the exception in the view variables
     */
    public function notFoundAction()
    {
        $this->_response->setHttpResponseCode(404);

        if ($this->_displayErrors === true) {
            $this->view->ExceptionMessage = $this->_error->exception->getMessage();
        }
    }


    /**
     * Handle an unknown server error
     *
     * If displaying errors we pass back the exception message and the traceback
     */
    public function serverErrorAction()
    {
        if ($this->_displayErrors === true) {
            $this->view->ExceptionMessage = $this->_error->exception->getMessage();

            $rawTrace = array_reverse($this->_error->exception->getTrace());
            $traceback = array();
            $index = 0;
            foreach ($rawTrace as $traceEntry) {
                $tracebackArgs = '';
                if (array_key_exists('args', $traceback)) {
                    $tracebackArgs = implode(',', $traceback['args']);
                }

                $traceback[] = '#'.$index++
                                .' '.$traceEntry['file']
                                .'('.$traceEntry['line'].')'
                                .' '.$traceEntry['class'].$traceEntry['type'].$traceEntry['function'].'('.$tracebackArgs.')';
            }

            $this->view->Traceback = print_r(implode("\n", $traceback), TRUE);
        }

        // Always log errors
        $exception = $this->_error->exception;
        error_log($exception);

        $this->_response->setHttpResponseCode(500);
    }
}

So the plugin will forward to the error action of your ErrorController. In there you can do anything you want, I choose to handle the 404 missing controller or action using a template and any other uncaught exceptions with a 500 server error which is also rendered out as a template.

Here are those two templates:
not-found.phtml<h1><?php echo $this->escape($this->title); ?></h1> <p>Sorry, the document you requested does not seem to exist.</p> <p>You can try returning to the <a href="<?php echo $this->baseURL; ?>/">Home</a> page if you want.</p> <pre><?php echo $this->ExceptionMessage; ?></pre>
server-error.phtml<h1><?php echo $this->escape($this->title); ?></h1> <p>Sorry, we were not able to complete your request.</p> <p>You can try returning to the <a href="<?php echo $this->baseURL; ?>/">Home</a> page if you want.</p> <pre><?php echo $this->ExceptionMessage; ?></pre> <pre><?php echo $this->Traceback; ?></pre>That's it. In case you are wondering where all of the HTML is in those templates, I use Zend_Layout so my action-based view scripts are quite minimal.

Now you have a top level catch-all that can handle routing errors without having to write a "No Route" plugin and you get a top level exception handler in case you let one slip by you. Which would never happen of course