PHP function to check if something valid or return error message [closed]

Question

I would like to make a function that checks if something is valid, but if it can't then I want to return an error message that will probably be used to to throw an exception.

public function isTodayWithinDateRange(\DateTime $start, \DateTime $end) {
    $now = new \DateTime();
    if($now >= $start && $now <= $end) return true;
    if($now < $start) return 'Today is before the start date';
    if($now > $end) return 'Today is later than the end date';
}

And would probably use within a foreach as a validation check such as...

if(isTodayWithinDateRange($myStart, $myEnd) !== true) {
    throw new Exception(isTodayWithinDateRange($myStart, $myEnd));
}

Is this a good way to go about it? I thought about putting the exception within the function, but this doesn't seem right as all that function should be doing is doing a check and the thing calling it should decide if an error is exceptional or not.

I also thought about returning an array such as...

    return array(
        'success' => false,
        'error' => 'Today is later than the end date'
    );

But I would expect isTodayWithinDateRange to return true if the answer is 'yes'.

Answer 1

Simply , the method isTodayWithinDateRange can throw the exception in this case since the responsability of the method is to check the constraint . So , i think that you can try it as :

function isTodayWithinDateRange(\DateTime $start, \DateTime $end) {
  $now = new \DateTime();
  if($now < $start) throw new Excception('Today is before the start date') ;
  if($now > $end) throw new Exception('Today is later than the end date');  
  return true;

}

First , start with case where you are looking to throw exception , in this case , it's not clearly , but think about a case where you have a lot of logic , here you should start with cases where you don't need to manipulate your logic (like if the argument is null , or missing ...) .

Call you method as :

$myStart = new Datetime('01-06-2012');
$myEnd = new Datetime('01-06-2020');

// loop 

try{

if(isTodayWithinDateRange($myStart, $myEnd)) {
 echo 'contraint validated';

}
}catch(Exception $e){

    echo $e->getMessage();
}
//end loop

I hope this help you .