Laravel Tutorial · Requests and Responses · Lesson 12 of 27

Errors, Exceptions and Logging

Stop requests with abort(), throw custom exceptions that render their own responses, report errors to logs, and know what debug mode changes.

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abort and HTTP exceptions

abort(403), abort(404, 'Not found'), abort_if($cond, 403) and abort_unless(...) throw an HTTP exception that Laravel converts into a response: a JSON error for API requests, an error page for browsers (resources/views/errors/404.blade.php customises it).

Custom exceptions

An exception class can define render() (what the user gets) and report() (what's logged). Or configure rendering centrally in bootstrap/app.php with ->withExceptions(fn ($exceptions) => $exceptions->render(...)).

abort(), a custom renderable exception, and hidden internals

<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

class InsufficientStock extends RuntimeException
{
    public function __construct(public string $sku, public int $available)
    {
        parent::__construct("Not enough stock for $sku");
    }

    public function render()
    {
        return response()->json([
            'error' => 'insufficient_stock',
            'message' => "Only {$this->available} left of {$this->sku}.",
        ], 409);
    }
}

$stock = ['MUG' => 2];

Route::post('/cart/{sku}', function (string $sku) use ($stock) {
    abort_unless(isset($stock[$sku]), 404, "Unknown product $sku");
    $qty = (int) request('qty', 1);
    if ($qty > $stock[$sku]) {
        throw new InsufficientStock($sku, $stock[$sku]);
    }
    return ['added' => $qty];
});
Route::get('/admin', fn () => abort(403));
Route::get('/broken', fn () => throw new LogicException('database password is hunter2'));

visit('POST', '/cart/MUG', ['qty' => 1]);
visit('POST', '/cart/MUG', ['qty' => 5]);
visit('POST', '/cart/TEA');
visit('GET', '/admin');
visit('GET', '/broken');      // debug mode is off: the message is hidden from the client

<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;

class InsufficientStock extends RuntimeException
{
    public function __construct(public string $sku, public int $available)
    {
        parent::__construct("Not enough stock for $sku");
    }

public function render()
    {
        return response()->json([
            'error' => 'insufficient_stock',
            'message' => "Only {$this->available} left of {$this->sku}.",
        ], 409);
    }
}

$stock = ['MUG' => 2];

Route::post('/cart/{sku}', function (string $sku) use ($stock) {
    abort_unless(isset($stock[$sku]), 404, "Unknown product $sku");
    $qty = (int) request('qty', 1);
    if ($qty > $stock[$sku]) {
        throw new InsufficientStock($sku, $stock[$sku]);
    }
    return ['added' => $qty];
});
Route::get('/admin', fn () => abort(403));
Route::get('/broken', fn () => throw new LogicException('database password is hunter2'));

visit('POST', '/cart/MUG', ['qty' => 1]);
visit('POST', '/cart/MUG', ['qty' => 5]);
visit('POST', '/cart/TEA');
visit('GET', '/admin');
visit('GET', '/broken');      // debug mode is off: the message is hidden from the client

Output

POST /cart/MUG -> 200 {"added":1}
POST /cart/MUG -> 409 {"error":"insufficient_stock","message":"Only 2 left of MUG."}
POST /cart/TEA -> 404 {
    "message": "Unknown product TEA"
}
GET /admin -> 403 {
    "message": ""
}
GET /broken -> 500 {
    "message": "Server Error"
}

Run this on your computer — see “Get Started” for setup.

Debug mode and logging

APP_DEBUG=true shows detailed error pages with stack traces: never in production, it leaks code and secrets.
report($e) logs an exception without stopping the request; Log::error('message', ['order' => $id]) writes structured log entries to the channel configured in config/logging.php (files, stderr, Slack, external services).

Test yourself

Why must APP_DEBUG be false in production?

It makes the app slower
Debug error pages expose stack traces, code and configuration details
It disables logging
Routes stop working

Show answer

Answer: Debug error pages expose stack traces, code and configuration details

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