Braintree PHP Library (3.8.0) Error Handling

Question

The PHP library returns result objects from most of the API calls. What is the official way of distinguishing between a validation error and a transaction error?

The Braintree docs seem to suggest using sizeof($result->errors) > 0 to determine if validation errors have occurred. But this is also > 0 when a transaction error has occurred.

The only other way I can think of is somehow determining whether the transaction object exists within the $result object, a bit of a hack, and then viewing the status within the transaction object

Answer 1

_{Full disclosure: I work at Braintree. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact our support team.}

You are correct that the suggested way to check for transaction errors is to see if there is a transaction object present. Here is a snippet of code illustrating appropriate error handling for a Braintree\Transaction::sale call.

if ($result->success){
    $transaction = $result->transaction;
} elseif (!is_null($result->transaction)){
    $transaction = $result->transaction;
    $_SESSION["errors"] = "Transaction status - " . $result->transaction->status;
} else {
    $errorString = "";

    foreach($result->errors->deepAll() as $error) {
        $errorString .= $error->code . "-" . $error->message . "\n";
    }

    $_SESSION["errors"] = $errorString;
}