Not understanding specific exception logic

@martinbean, thanks for your follow up question. It returns an array or throws an exception if it cannot return data. It's dififcult to do dd-ing, as the error does only show up sporadically (in less than 0.5% of the cases)

public function function_that_fetches_data_from_external_api()(): array
{
    $url = $this->url.'?'.http_build_query($this->parameters);

    // Connect with the API or throw error/exception
    try {
        $response = Http::withToken($token)->withHeaders([
            'Content-Type' => 'application/json',
            'accept' => 'application/json',
        ])->get($url);
    } catch (\Exception $e) {
        throw new \Exception("No response was received from the API for url: $url");
    } catch (\Error $e) {
        throw new \Exception("No response was received from the  API for url: $url");
    }

    // Check for faulty respons
    if ($response->status() === 404 && json_decode($response->body())->metadata->totalRecords === 0) {
        return [json_decode('{}'), json_decode($response)->metadata];
    }

    // Check for erroneous response
    if ($response->status() != 200) {
        // ACTION: reset the token 
        throw new \Exception('Error getting data from the API');
    }

    // Success: return array
    return [json_decode($response)->data, json_decode($response)->metadata];
}

@ndeblauw I think you’re over-complicating your code to be honest. Laravel’s HTTP client has a throws method to automatically throw exceptions if the request fails. Just catching these exceptions, and then converting them to plain Exception instances, just loses importing context that would help you in debugging any failed requests. The message "No response was received from the API for url: $url" isn’t really helpful as you’ve thrown away context such as the request details, the actual response that was returned, etc.

I’d just make the request and return the data if the request was successful:

public function function_that_fetches_data_from_external_api(): array
{
    $url = $this->url . '?' . http_build_query($this->parameters);

    $response = Http::withToken($token)
        ->acceptJson()
        ->get($url)
        ->throwUnlessStatus(200);

    return $response->json();
}

The method then just returns the response data if the request was successful, or exceptions are thrown if the request fails.

You’re also clearly not showing us your actual code given you had a typo (two ()() at the end of your method definition), and referencing a random $token variable that isn’t actually defined in the method scope.

@Snapey it is the fail() function from InteractsWithQueue for a job

    /**
     * Fail the job from the queue.
     *
     * @param  \Throwable|string|null  $exception
     * @return void
     */
    public function fail($exception = null) 
    {
        //...
     }

@ndeblauw You don’t need to manually catch exceptions and call that fail method, though. The job will automatically be marked as failed if an exception is thrown within the handle method.

All you’re doing by catching exceptions, and re-throwing your own generic exception, is making your life harder by discarding any helpful context that would have been present in the original exception. Your failed_jobs table is going to go from display actual exceptions to just unhelpful “Error getting data” messages with no other information to assist you with debugging.