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Why would PHP's stat throw a RuntimeException?

Is there a reason why a call to stat would throw a RuntimeException? This is during testing with phpunit, using CakePHP and PHP-VCR. The call to stat includes the error control operator, @. So it's:

The error occurs in the PHP-VCR code (StreamProcessor.php line 291).

    try {
        $result = @stat($path);
    } catch (\RuntimeException $e) {
        error_log(print_r($e, true));
    }


'type' => (int) 2,
'message' => 'stat(): stat failed for /x/y/z/mycakephpprojet/app/tmp/cache/persistent/myapp_cake_core_cake_eng',
'file' => '/x/y/z/mycakephpprojet/app/Vendor/php-vcr/php-vcr/src/VCR/Util/StreamProcessor.php',
'line' => (int) 291

What I know is that the referenced file is missing (it's a cache file that is generated at some point later). So I'd expect stat to return false, not throw an exception.

Notes:

• I was thinking perhaps it's thrown by some custom handler of a composer package (like phpunit). However, error_reporting() reports 24575, where I'd expect it to be 0 because of the @ error control operator. Also, I looked through all the set_error_handler calls and even put debug calls in those and I'm sure it's not from them.

• The stack trace from the exception object has the most recent line as

  '#0 [internal function]: VCR\Util\StreamProcessor->url_stat('/home/tylercoll...', 2)
  

  so I don't feel like there's another level that I could possibly intercept to inspect.

• Oddly, the RuntimeException that's thrown cannot be handled with my own custom set_exception_handler. But if I manually use throw new \RuntimeException, my custom handler will be used.
• ONE time the exception type was PHPUnit_Framework_Error_Warning. I'm 99% positive that I ran it again immediately and it's been RuntimeException since then. But the warning would make sense given that the error's type is reported as 2 (aka E_WARNING).
• One of the reasons I think it's something to do with PHP is because if I remove the @ error control operator, I get many WARNINGs (not exceptions) saying stat failed. However, this I'm pretty sure is from the CakePHP test harness because after many of those go by, then I see PHPUnit 3.7.37 by Sebastian Bergmann. Configuration read from phpunit.xml. And then the failure is after that.
• I'm on Ubuntu 12.04 with PHP 5.4.23.