Safely catch a 'Allowed memory size exhausted' error in PHP

I have a gateway script that returns JSON back to the client. In the script I use set_error_handler to catch errors and still have a formatted return.

It is subject to 'Allowed memory size exhausted' errors, but rather than increase the memory limit with something like ini_set('memory_limit', '19T'), I just want to return that the user should try something else because it used to much memory.

Are there any good ways to catch fatal errors?

As this answer suggests, you can use register_shutdown_function() to register a callback that'll check error_get_last().

You'll still have to manage the output generated from the offending code, whether by the @ (shut up) operator, or ini_set('display_errors', false)

ini_set('display_errors', false);

error_reporting(-1);

set_error_handler(function($code, $string, $file, $line){
        throw new ErrorException($string, null, $code, $file, $line);
    });

register_shutdown_function(function(){
        $error = error_get_last();
        if(null !== $error)
        {
            echo 'Caught at shutdown';
        }
    });

try
{
    while(true)
    {
        $data .= str_repeat('#', PHP_INT_MAX);
    }
}
catch(\Exception $exception)
{
    echo 'Caught in try/catch';
}

When run, this outputs Caught at shutdown. Unfortunately, the ErrorException exception object isn't thrown because the fatal error triggers script termination, subsequently caught only in the shutdown function.

You can check the $error array in the shutdown function for details on the cause, and respond accordingly. One suggestion could be reissuing the request back against your web application (at a different address, or with different parameters of course) and return the captured response.

I recommend keeping error_reporting() high (a value of -1) though, and using (as others have suggested) error handling for everything else with set_error_handler() and ErrorException.

If you need to execute business code when this error happens (logging, backup of the context for future debugs, emailing or such), registering a shutdown function is not enough: you should free memory in a way.

One solution is to allocate some emergency memory somewhere:

public function initErrorHandler()
{
    // This storage is freed on error (case of allowed memory exhausted)
    $this->memory = str_repeat('*', 1024 * 1024);

    register_shutdown_function(function()
    {
        $this->memory = null;
        if ((!is_null($err = error_get_last())) && (!in_array($err['type'], array (E_NOTICE, E_WARNING))))
        {
           // $this->emergencyMethod($err);
        }
    });
    return $this;
}

you could get the size of the memory already consumed by the process by using this function memory_get_peak_usage documentations are at http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.memory-get-peak-usage.php I think it would be easier if you could add a condition to redirect or stop the process before the memory limit is almost reached by the process. :)

While @alain-tiemblo solution works perfectly, I put this script to show how you can reserve some memory in a php script, out of object scope.

Short Version

// memory is an object and it is passed by reference
function shutdown($memory) {
    // unsetting $memory does not free up memory
    // I also tried unsetting a global variable which did not free up the memory
    unset($memory->reserve);
}

$memory = new stdClass();
// reserve 3 mega bytes
$memory->reserve = str_repeat('❤', 1024 * 1024);

register_shutdown_function('shutdown', $memory);

Full Sample Script

<?php

function getMemory(){
    return ((int) (memory_get_usage() / 1024)) . 'KB';
}

// memory is an object and it is passed by reference
function shutdown($memory) {
    echo 'Start Shut Down: ' . getMemory() . PHP_EOL;

    // unsetting $memory does not free up memory
    // I also tried unsetting a global variable which did not free up the memory
    unset($memory->reserve);

    echo 'End Shut Down: ' . getMemory() . PHP_EOL;
}

echo 'Start: ' . getMemory() . PHP_EOL;

$memory = new stdClass();
// reserve 3 mega bytes
$memory->reserve = str_repeat('❤', 1024 * 1024);

echo 'After Reserving: ' . getMemory() . PHP_EOL;

unset($memory);

echo 'After Unsetting: ' . getMemory() . PHP_EOL;

$memory = new stdClass();
// reserve 3 mega bytes
$memory->reserve = str_repeat('❤', 1024 * 1024);

echo 'After Reserving again: ' . getMemory() . PHP_EOL;

// passing $memory object to shut down function
register_shutdown_function('shutdown', $memory);

And the output would be:

Start: 349KB
After Reserving: 3426KB
After Unsetting: 349KB
After Reserving again: 3426KB
Start Shut Down: 3420KB
End Shut Down: 344KB