(sorry, once again I don't remember which is the appropriate issue queue for this)
Some methods in Drupal have a parameter that controls whether an exception can be thrown, or null is returned on failure.
Example from Drupal\Component\Plugin\Discovery\DiscoveryInterface:
/**
* Gets a specific plugin definition.
*
* @param string $plugin_id
* A plugin id.
* @param bool $exception_on_invalid
* (optional) If TRUE, an invalid plugin ID will throw an exception.
*
* @return mixed
* A plugin definition, or NULL if the plugin ID is invalid and
* $exception_on_invalid is FALSE.
*
* @throws \Drupal\Component\Plugin\Exception\PluginNotFoundException
* Thrown if $plugin_id is invalid and $exception_on_invalid is TRUE.
*/
public function getDefinition($plugin_id, $exception_on_invalid = TRUE);
Such methods confuse the IDE and static code analysis tools.
Because the IDE does not understand the meaning of the second parameter, one still needs to wrap the entire thing in try/catch to prevent inspection warnings.
I propose, as a policy, that whenever we introduce new methods, there should be distinct methods with and without exception.
E.g. if we were to rewrite Drupal\Component\Plugin\Discovery\DiscoveryInterface (which I am not proposing at all):
/**
* Gets a specific plugin definition or NULL.
*
* @param string $plugin_id
* A plugin id.
*
* @return mixed
* A plugin definition, or NULL if the plugin ID is invalid.
*/
public function getDefinition($plugin_id);
/**
* Gets a specific plugin definition, or throws an exception.
*
* @param string $plugin_id
* A plugin id.
*
* @return mixed
* A plugin definition, if the $plugin_id is valid (exception otherwise).
*
* @throws \Drupal\Component\Plugin\Exception\PluginNotFoundException
* Thrown if $plugin_id is invalid.
*/
public function requireDefinition($plugin_id);
For my taste, we could name the first method getDefinitionOrNull() instead. But I think to remember from previous discussions that people find this awkward, so I am fine with getDefinition().
The question whether this is a good idea or not applies beyond Drupal or PHP, so I started this stackexchange question: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/362900/parameter...