Fatal error: Cannot declare class Error, because the name is already in use

Question

I don't understand why my machine running PHP 7.2.9 gives this error:

Fatal error: Cannot declare class Error, because the name is already in use in controllers\error.php on line 3

I have a file named controllers/error.php which contains:

<?php

class Error {

    function __construct() {
        echo 'Error: 404 not found the file.';
    }

}

Meanwhile, I have a file named /index.php which contains:

require "controllers/error.php";
$controller = new Error;

Even if I change from require to require_once "controllers/error.php", it still keeping reporting the same message.

Answer 1

Error is a built-in class in PHP 7.

As such, you cannot make a class Error {}.

Rename the class, or put it in a namespace to avoid conflict.

(Or, as a third option, you could consider using/extending the built-in class instead of making your own error handling system from scratch.)