Error Handling

There are generally two types of errors that can occur in Blade — Syntax Errors and Runtime Exceptions. A Syntax error occurs when you attempt to run an invalid program, while a Runtime Exception is any error that occurs during the execution of the program.

Blade typically reports Syntax errors looking like the below.

@note: Syntax errors cannot be handled.

SyntaxError at ':': end of statement expected
  <repl>:1

While Runtime Exceptions are reported similar to the following.

Unhandled Exception: only functions and classes can be called
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:1 -> @.script()

Exceptions

Blade comes with the built-in class Exception which is raised everytime a Runtime Exception occurs. For example,

%> [1,2,3][5]
Unhandled Exception: list index 5 out of range
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:1 -> @.script()

Blade allows us to manually trigger a Runtime Exception at any point in a program as well via the die keyword.

For example:

%> die Exception('I was manually triggered')
Unhandled Exception: I was manually triggered
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:1 -> @.script()

Custom Exceptions

You can define custom Exception classes by subclassing the class Exception. All custom Exceptions in Blade must descend from the built-in Exception class.

For example:

%> class MyCustomException < Exception {}
%> die MyCustomException('Something happened')
Unhandled MyCustomException: Something happened
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:1 -> @.script()

Catching Exceptions

Blade supports testing for and catching Exceptions as well via the try...catch... block allowing graceful handling of runtime errors that should have ordinarily halt the application. The catch block of the try/catch must specify the type of Exception to be caught by that block and only that type of Exception or it’s subclass will be affected by the catch block.

For example:

%> try {
..   die Exception('Sucide!')
.. } catch Exception {
..   echo 'Ha!Ha!! You survived!'
.. }
'Ha!Ha!! You survived!'

The catch block can also catch the Exception into a variable, allowing us to manipulate and use the Exception object itself for a fine grained error reporting or anything for that matter.

For example:

%> try {
..   die Exception('Sucide!')
.. } catch Exception e {
..   echo '${e.message}? Bad Idea!'
.. }
'Sucide!? Bad Idea!'

Finally…

Most times, when we anticipate Exceptions in our code and wrap the code in a try/catch block, we want to be able to do something or run a piece a code irrespective of whether an Exception occured or not. For this, Blade supports an optional finally block.

For example:

%> try {
..   echo 'No exception'
.. } catch Exception {
..   echo 'Something went wrong!'
.. } finally {
..   echo 'All is good'
.. }
'No exception'
'All is good'

Whenever the finally is present, The catch block may be omitted.

For example:

%> try {
..   echo 'No exception'
.. } finally {
..   echo 'No catch occured!'
.. }
'No exception'
'No catch occured!'

In this case, even though the Blade will halt the execution of the program whenever an Exception occurs, the finally block will still run irrespective of whether the program will halt or not (if no error occured.)

For example:

%> try {
..   die Exception('No exception')
.. } finally {
..   echo 'I will still run'
.. }
'I will still run'
Unhandled Exception: No exception
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:2 -> @.script()

Asserts

Often times, we want to verify that one or more conditions are true before we continue execution otherwise, termiate the function and/or process and stop it from going further. This can be achieved using complicated and/or nested if...else... blocks with a messy use of the die command, but Blade offers a more intuitive approach via the assert command.

For example:

%> assert 10 == 5
Illegal State:
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:1 -> @.script()
%> 
%> var a = 13
%> var b = 24
%> assert a != b

The assert command also takes an optional error value of any value type that can be specified by separating the assertion and the message by a comma (,). None string error messages will be converted to string before dieing.

For example:

%> assert 5 > 25, 'Bad mathematician!'
Illegal State: Bad mathematician!
  StackTrace:
    <repl>:1 -> @.script()