I have a select() method in a database class, that has an optional boolean argument $sum. This argument is used to say if the method should use
If you want to generate a warning, you should write
trigger_error($yourErrorMessage, E_USER_WARNING);
trigger_error() has the $error_type parameter for setting the error level (Notice, Warning or Fatal error). The constants are, respectively:
E_USER_NOTICE // Notice (default)
E_USER_WARNING // Warning
E_USER_ERROR // Fatal Error
Note that Fatal error stops the execution of subsequent PHP code, while Notice and Warning let it continue.
From PHP 5.5, you should also consider the Finally statement.
You're going the object-oriented approach, so I suggest a look into exceptions.
You could try trigger_error().