[php] Handle Guzzle exception and get HTTP body

I would like to handle errors from Guzzle when the server returns 4xx and 5xx status codes. I make a request like this:

$client = $this->getGuzzleClient();
$request = $client->post($url, $headers, $value);
try {
    $response = $request->send();
    return $response->getBody();
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    // How can I get the response body?
}

$e->getMessage returns code info but not the body of the HTTP response. How can I get the response body?

Guzzle 6.x

Per the docs, the exception types you may need to catch are:

• GuzzleHttp\Exception\ClientException for 400-level errors
• GuzzleHttp\Exception\ServerException for 500-level errors
• GuzzleHttp\Exception\BadResponseException for both (it's their superclass)

Code to handle such errors thus now looks something like this:

$client = new GuzzleHttp\Client;
try {
    $client->get('http://google.com/nosuchpage');    
}
catch (GuzzleHttp\Exception\ClientException $e) {
    $response = $e->getResponse();
    $responseBodyAsString = $response->getBody()->getContents();
}

None of the above responses are working for error that has no body but still has some describing text. For me, it was SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate error. So I looked right into the code, because doc does't really say much, and did this (in Guzzle 7.1):

try {
    // call here
} catch (\GuzzleHttp\Exception\RequestException $e) {
    if ($e->hasResponse()) {
        $response = $e->getResponse();
        // message is in $response->getReasonPhrase()
    } else {
        $response = $e->getHandlerContext();
        if (isset($response['error'])) {
            // message is in $response['error']
        } else {
            // Unknown error occured!
        }
    }
}

if put 'http_errors' => false in guzzle request options, then it would stop throw exception while get 4xx or 5xx error, like this: $client->get(url, ['http_errors' => false]). then you parse the response, not matter it's ok or error, it would be in the response for more info

As of 2019 here is what I elaborated from the answers above and Guzzle docs to handle the exception, get the response body, status code, message and the other sometimes valuable response items.

try {
    /**
     * We use Guzzle to make an HTTP request somewhere in the
     * following theMethodMayThrowException().
     */
    $result = theMethodMayThrowException();
} catch (\GuzzleHttp\Exception\RequestException $e) {
    /**
     * Here we actually catch the instance of GuzzleHttp\Psr7\Response
     * (find it in ./vendor/guzzlehttp/psr7/src/Response.php) with all
     * its own and its 'Message' trait's methods. See more explanations below.
     *
     * So you can have: HTTP status code, message, headers and body.
     * Just check the exception object has the response before.
     */
    if ($e->hasResponse()) {
        $response = $e->getResponse();
        var_dump($response->getStatusCode()); // HTTP status code;
        var_dump($response->getReasonPhrase()); // Response message;
        var_dump((string) $response->getBody()); // Body, normally it is JSON;
        var_dump(json_decode((string) $response->getBody())); // Body as the decoded JSON;
        var_dump($response->getHeaders()); // Headers array;
        var_dump($response->hasHeader('Content-Type')); // Is the header presented?
        var_dump($response->getHeader('Content-Type')[0]); // Concrete header value;
    }
}
// process $result etc. ...

Voila. You get the response's information in conveniently separated items.

Side Notes:

With catch clause we catch the inheritance chain PHP root exception class \Exception as Guzzle custom exceptions extend it.

This approach may be useful for use cases where Guzzle is used under the hood like in Laravel or AWS API PHP SDK so you cannot catch the genuine Guzzle exception.

In this case, the exception class may not be the one mentioned in the Guzzle docs (e.g. GuzzleHttp\Exception\RequestException as the root exception for Guzzle).

So you have to catch \Exception instead but bear in mind it is still the Guzzle exception class instance.

Though use with care. Those wrappers may make Guzzle $e->getResponse() object's genuine methods not available. In this case, you will have to look at the wrapper's actual exception source code and find out how to get status, message, etc. instead of using Guzzle $response's methods.

If you call Guzzle directly yourself you can catch GuzzleHttp\Exception\RequestException or any other one mentioned in their exceptions docs with respect to your use case conditions.

The question was:

I would like to handle errors from Guzzle when the server returns 4xx and 5xx status codes

The other answers are mostly incomplete. 404 and 500 will throw different exceptions.

Also, the question is do you just want to handle the errors or do you want to get the body? I think in most cases it would be sufficient to handle the errors and not get the message body.

I would look at the documentation to check how your version of Guzzle handles it because this may change: https://docs.guzzlephp.org/en/stable/quickstart.html#exceptions

Guzzle 7 (from the docs):

. \RuntimeException
+-- TransferException (implements GuzzleException)
    +-- RequestException
        +-- BadResponseException
        ¦   +-- ServerException
        ¦   +-- ClientException
        +-- ConnectException
        +-- TooManyRedirectsException

So, you code might look like this:

try {
    $response = $client->request('GET', $url);
    if ($response->getStatusCode() >= 300) {
       $statusCode = $response->getStatusCode();
       // handle error 
    } else {
      // is valid URL
    }
            
} catch (TooManyRedirectsException $e) {
    // handle too many redirects
} catch (ClientException | ServerException $e) {
    // ClientException - A GuzzleHttp\Exception\ClientException is thrown for 400 level errors if the http_errors request option is set to true.
    // ServerException - A GuzzleHttp\Exception\ServerException is thrown for 500 level errors if the http_errors request option is set to true.
    if ($e->hasResponse()) {
       $statusCode = $e->getResponse()->getStatusCode();
    }
} catch (ConnectException $e) {
    // ConnectException - A GuzzleHttp\Exception\ConnectException exception is thrown in the event of a networking error. This may be any libcurl error, including certificate problems
    $handlerContext = $e->getHandlerContext();
    if ($handlerContext['errno'] ?? 0) {
       // this is the libcurl error code, not the HTTP status code!!!
       $errno = (int)($handlerContext['errno']);
    }     
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    // fallback, in case of other exception
}

If you really need the body, you can retrieve it as usual:

https://docs.guzzlephp.org/en/stable/quickstart.html#using-responses

$body = $response->getBody();

• Guzzle exceptions
• libcurl error codes
• HTTP status codes

While the answers above are good they will not catch network errors. As Mark mentioned, BadResponseException is just a super class for ClientException and ServerException. But RequestException is also a super class of BadResponseException. RequestException will be thrown for not only 400 and 500 errors but network errors and infinite redirects too. So let's say you request the page below but your network is playing up and your catch is only expecting a BadResponseException. Well your application will throw an error.

It's better in this case to expect RequestException and check for a response.

try {
  $client->get('http://123123123.com')
} catch (RequestException $e) {

  // If there are network errors, we need to ensure the application doesn't crash.
  // if $e->hasResponse is not null we can attempt to get the message
  // Otherwise, we'll just pass a network unavailable message.
  if ($e->hasResponse()) {
    $exception = (string) $e->getResponse()->getBody();
    $exception = json_decode($exception);
    return new JsonResponse($exception, $e->getCode());
  } else {
    return new JsonResponse($e->getMessage(), 503);
  }

}