symfony error handling without form framework

Question

Hi, I'm new to Symfony and struggling to find an elegant solution for handling errors.

I know I can throw Exceptions and make my own Exception classes, but it's how to display the error to the user in the best possible fashion.

For example, I've got a Card class that charges credit and debit cards, there are a variety of different problems that can occur.

So should I make exceptions for the different problems, or use a generic CardException class, but where should I save the actual error messages, it's not good to hard code the error messages into the card class itself.

And then how to display them to the user.

I could do it but I get the feeling that it's going to be a messy solution and I'm looking for the correct, best practice, symfony way.

Any ideas?

Or should I be using the form framework, I am already for accepting the user's card details, but how to display an error related to a web service call and not a problem with the information they've submitted.

Answer 1

You can always use flash messages for errors that do not take part of validation.

$this->getUser()->setFlash('error', 'An error occurred while your transaction took place please try again later.');

Answer 2

It only answers part of your question, (I'm just talking about Ajax errors) but what I do is to have a div somewhere on the page called 'error_area', and a Javscript function called displayAjaxError which adds the message to that div.