10 KiB
Custom errors, extending Error
When we develop something, we often need our own error classes to reflect specific things that may go wrong in our tasks. For errors in network operations we may need HttpError, for database operations DbError, for searching operations NotFoundError and so on.
Our errors should inherit from basic Error class and support basic error properties like message, name and, preferably, stack. But they also may have other properties of their own, e.g. HttpError objects may have statusCode property with a value like 404 or 403 or 500.
Technically, we can use standalone classes for our errors, because JavaScript allows to use throw with any argument. But if we inherit from Error, then it becomes possible to use obj instanceof Error check to identify error objects. So it's better to inherit from it.
As we build our application, our own errors naturally form a hierarchy, for instance HttpTimeoutError may inherit from HttpError. Examples will follow soon.
Extending Error
As an example, let's consider a function readUser(json) that should read JSON with user data.
Here's an example of how a valid json may look:
let json = `{ "name": "John", "age": 30 }`;
If JSON.parse receives malformed json, then it throws SyntaxError. But even if json is syntactically correct, it may don't have the necessary data. For instance, if may not have name and age properties that are essential for our users.
That's called "data validation" -- we need to ensure that the data has all the necessary fields. And if the validation fails, then it not really a SyntaxError, because the data is syntactically correct. Let's create ValidationError -- the error object of our own with additional information about the offending field.
Our ValidationError should inherit from the built-in Error class. To better understand what we're extending -- here's the approximate code for built-in Error class:
// "pseudocode" for the built-in Error class defined by JavaScript itself
class Error {
constructor(message) {
this.message = message;
this.name = "Error"; // (different names for different built-in error classes)
this.stack = <nested calls>; // non-standard, but most environments support it
}
}
Now let's inherit from it:
*!*
class ValidationError extends Error {
*/!*
constructor(message) {
super(message); // (1)
this.name = "ValidationError"; // (2)
}
}
function test() {
throw new ValidationError("Woops!");
}
try {
test();
} catch(err) {
alert(err.message); // Woops!
alert(err.name); // ValidationError
alert(err.stack); // a list of nested calls with line numbers for each
}
Please note:
- In the line
(1)we call the parent constructor to set the message. JavaScript requires us to callsuperin the child constructor. - The parent constructor sets the
nameproperty to"Error", so here we reset it to the right value.
Let's try to use it in readUser(json):
class ValidationError extends Error {
constructor(message) {
super(message);
this.name = "ValidationError";
}
}
// Usage
function readUser(json) {
let user = JSON.parse(json);
if (!user.age) {
throw new ValidationError("No field: age");
}
if (!user.name) {
throw new ValidationError("No field: name");
}
return user;
}
// Working example with try..catch
try {
let user = readUser('{ "age": 25 }');
} catch (err) {
if (err instanceof ValidationError) {
*!*
alert("Invalid data: " + err.message); // Invalid data: No field: name
*/!*
} else if (err instanceof SyntaxError) {
alert("JSON Syntax Error: " + err.message);
} else {
throw err; // unknown error, rethrow it
}
}
Everything works -- both our ValidationError and the built-in SyntaxError from JSON.parse can be generated and handled.
Please take a look at how the code checks for the error type in catch (err) { ... }. We could use if (err.name == "ValidationError"), but if (err instanceof ValidationError) is much better, because in the future we are going to extend ValidationError, make new subtypes of it, namely PropertyRequiredError. And instanceof check will continue to work. So that's future-proof.
Also it's important that if catch meets an unknown error, then it rethrows it. The catch only knows how to handle validation and syntax errors, other kinds (due to a typo in the code or such) should fall through.
Further inheritance
The ValidationError class is very generic. Many things may be wrong. The property may be absent or it may be in a wrong format (like a string value for age). Let's make a more concrete class PropertyRequiredError, exactly for absent properties. It will carry additional information about the property that's missing.
class ValidationError extends Error {
constructor(message) {
super(message);
this.name = "ValidationError";
}
}
*!*
class PropertyRequiredError extends ValidationError {
constructor(property) {
super("No property: " + property);
this.name = "PropertyRequiredError";
this.property = property;
}
}
*/!*
// Usage
function readUser(json) {
let user = JSON.parse(json);
if (!user.age) {
throw new PropertyRequiredError("age");
}
if (!user.name) {
throw new PropertyRequiredError("name");
}
return user;
}
// Working example with try..catch
try {
let user = readUser('{ "age": 25 }');
} catch (err) {
if (err instanceof ValidationError) {
*!*
alert("Invalid data: " + err.message); // Invalid data: No property: name
alert(err.name); // PropertyRequiredError
alert(err.property); // name
*/!*
} else if (err instanceof SyntaxError) {
alert("JSON Syntax Error: " + err.message);
} else {
throw err; // unknown error, rethrow it
}
}
The new class PropertyRequiredError is easy to use: we only need to pass the property name: new PropertyRequiredError(property). The human-readable message is generated by the constructor.
Plese note that this.name in PropertyRequiredError once again assigned manually. We could make our own "basic error" class, name it MyError that removes this burden from our shoulders by using this.constructor.name for this.name in the constructor. And then inherit from it.
Here we go:
class MyError extends Error {
constructor(message) {
super(message);
*!*
this.name = this.constructor.name;
*/!*
}
}
class ValidationError extends MyError { }
class PropertyRequiredError extends ValidationError {
constructor(property) {
super("No property: " + property);
this.property = property;
}
}
// name is correct
alert( new PropertyRequiredError("field").name ); // PropertyRequiredError
Now the inheritance became simpler, as we got rid of the "this.name = ..." line in the constructor.
Wrapping exceptions
The purpose of the function readUser in the code above is "to read the user data", right? There may occur different kinds of errors in the process. Right now we have SyntaxError and ValidationError, but there may appear more if we put more stuff into it.
Right now the code which calls readUser uses multiple if in catch to check for different error types. The important questions is: do we really want to check for all error types one-by-one every time we call readUser?
Often the answer is: "No". The outer code wants to be "one level above all that". It wants to have some kind of "data reading error". Why exactly it happened -- is usually irrelevant (the message has the info). Or, even better if there is a way to get more details, but only if we need to.
So let's make a new class ReadError to represent such errors. If an error occurs inside readUser, we'll catch it there and generate ReadError. We'll also keep the reference to the original error in the cause property.
class ReadError extends Error {
constructor(message, cause) {
super(message);
this.cause = cause;
this.name = 'ReadError';
}
}
class ValidationError extends Error { /*...*/ }
class PropertyRequiredError extends ValidationError { /* ... */ }
function validateUser(user) {
if (!user.age) {
throw new PropertyRequiredError("age");
}
if (!user.name) {
throw new PropertyRequiredError("name");
}
}
function readUser(json) {
let user;
try {
user = JSON.parse(json);
} catch (err) {
*!*
if (err instanceof SyntaxError) {
throw new ReadError("Syntax Error", err);
} else {
throw err;
}
*/!*
}
try {
validateUser(user);
} catch (err) {
*!*
if (err instanceof ValidationError) {
throw new ReadError("Validation Error", err);
} else {
throw err;
}
*/!*
}
}
try {
readUser('{bad json}');
} catch (e) {
if (e instanceof ReadError) {
*!*
alert(e);
// Original error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token b in JSON at position 1
alert("Original error: " + e.cause);
*/!*
} else {
throw e;
}
}
In the code above, readUser does exactly as described -- catches syntax and validation errors and throws ReadError errors instead (unknown errors are rethrown as usual).
The approach is called "wrapping exceptions", because we take "low level exceptions" and "wrap" them into ReadError that is more abstract and more convenient to use for the calling code. It is widely used in object-oriented programming.
Summary
- We can inherit from
Errorand other built-in error classes normally, just need to take care ofnameproperty and don't forget to callsuper. - Most of the time, we should use
instanceofto check for particular errors. It also works with inheritance. But sometimes we have an error object coming from the 3rd-party library and there's no easy way to get the class. Thennameproperty can be used for such checks. - Wrapping exceptions is a widespread technique when a function handles low-level exceptions and makes a higher-level object to report about the errors. Low-level exceptions sometimes become properties of that object like
err.causein the examples above, but that's not strictly required.