Same case with you.

Script
-----------------
$db = new PDO("mysql:dbname=mydb;host=127.0.0.1", "root", "" );
$db->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_SILENT);

Error Message
-----------------
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'PDOException' with message 'SQLSTATE[HY000] [1049] Unknown database 'mydb'' in D:\var\www\class\mysql.php:33 Stack 
trace: #0 D:\var\www\class\mysql.php(33): PDO->__construct('mysql:host=127....', 'root', 'root') #1 D:\var\www\class\mysql.php(20): mysql->connect() 
#2 D:\var\www\test.php(5): mysql->__construct() #3 {main} thrown in D:\var\www\class\mysql.php on line 33

There are more PDO::method calls that issue Exceptions regardless of what PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE has been set to. So far, I can also verify this for PDO::commit, PDO::beginTransaction, PDO::rollBack.

For some of them, the documentation actually states that they might emit a PDOException, for others there is no information on error handling. If you can set PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE you can expect that after issuing the attribute, all functions respect the mode and behave accordingly and will only behave otherwise if documented clearly.

If this is intended behaviour, please update the documentation on php.net to reflect that. If it is not, please fix the underlying implementation and look for other methods that might not honor the ATTR_ERRMODE setting.

Btw, same behaviour on Linux, and also with 5.5.8.

Warning: whatever() expects parameter 1 to be string,


This is a standard PHP function argument type mismatch warning coming from the PHP language itself, nothing to do with PDO. PDO is a different layer. As it is filed against PDO but there is nothing wrong with PDO behaving exactly the same way as any other PHP extension: not a bug.