Descendants of class Exception are used to
communicate between Kernel#raise
and rescue
statements in begin ... end
blocks. Exception objects carry information about the
exception – its type (the exception's class name), an optional
descriptive string, and optional traceback information. Exception subclasses may add additional
information like NameError#name.
Programs may make subclasses of Exception,
typically of StandardError or RuntimeError, to provide custom classes and
add additional information. See the subclass list below for defaults for
raise
and rescue
.
When an exception has been raised but not yet handled (in
rescue
, ensure
, at_exit
and
END
blocks) the global variable $!
will contain
the current exception and $@
contains the current
exception's backtrace.
It is recommended that a library should have one subclass of StandardError or RuntimeError and have specific exception types inherit from it. This allows the user to rescue a generic exception type to catch all exceptions the library may raise even if future versions of the library add new exception subclasses.
For example:
class MyLibrary class Error < RuntimeError end class WidgetError < Error end class FrobError < Error end end
To handle both WidgetError and FrobError the library user can rescue MyLibrary::Error.
The built-in subclasses of Exception are:
StandardError – default for
rescue
fatal – impossible to rescue
With no argument, or if the argument is the same as the receiver, return
the receiver. Otherwise, create a new exception object of the same class as
the receiver, but with a message equal to string.to_str
.
Construct a new Exception object, optionally passing in a message.
static VALUE exc_initialize(int argc, VALUE *argv, VALUE exc) { VALUE arg; rb_scan_args(argc, argv, "01", &arg); rb_iv_set(exc, "mesg", arg); rb_iv_set(exc, "bt", Qnil); return exc; }
Equality—If obj is not an Exception
, returns
false
. Otherwise, returns true
if exc
and obj share same class, messages, and backtrace.
static VALUE exc_equal(VALUE exc, VALUE obj) { VALUE mesg, backtrace; const ID id_mesg = idMesg; if (exc == obj) return Qtrue; if (rb_obj_class(exc) != rb_obj_class(obj)) { int status = 0; ID id_message, id_backtrace; CONST_ID(id_message, "message"); CONST_ID(id_backtrace, "backtrace"); obj = rb_protect(try_convert_to_exception, obj, &status); if (status || obj == Qundef) { rb_set_errinfo(Qnil); return Qfalse; } if (rb_obj_class(exc) != rb_obj_class(obj)) return Qfalse; mesg = rb_check_funcall(obj, id_message, 0, 0); if (mesg == Qundef) return Qfalse; backtrace = rb_check_funcall(obj, id_backtrace, 0, 0); if (backtrace == Qundef) return Qfalse; } else { mesg = rb_attr_get(obj, id_mesg); backtrace = exc_backtrace(obj); } if (!rb_equal(rb_attr_get(exc, id_mesg), mesg)) return Qfalse; if (!rb_equal(exc_backtrace(exc), backtrace)) return Qfalse; return Qtrue; }
Returns any backtrace associated with the exception. The backtrace is an array of strings, each containing either “filename:lineNo: in `method''' or “filename:lineNo.''
def a raise "boom" end def b a() end begin b() rescue => detail print detail.backtrace.join("\n") end
produces:
prog.rb:2:in `a' prog.rb:6:in `b' prog.rb:10
static VALUE exc_backtrace(VALUE exc) { ID bt; VALUE obj; CONST_ID(bt, "bt"); obj = rb_attr_get(exc, bt); if (rb_backtrace_p(obj)) { obj = rb_backtrace_to_str_ary(obj); /* rb_iv_set(exc, "bt", obj); */ } return obj; }
Returns any backtrace associated with the exception. This method is similar to #backtrace, but the backtrace is an array of
Thread::Backtrace::Location.
Now, this method is not affected by #set_backtrace.
static VALUE exc_backtrace_locations(VALUE exc) { ID bt_locations; VALUE obj; CONST_ID(bt_locations, "bt_locations"); obj = rb_attr_get(exc, bt_locations); if (!NIL_P(obj)) { obj = rb_backtrace_to_location_ary(obj); } return obj; }
Returns the previous exception ($!) at the time this exception was raised. This is useful for wrapping exceptions and retaining the original exception information.
VALUE exc_cause(VALUE exc) { ID id_cause; CONST_ID(id_cause, "cause"); return rb_attr_get(exc, id_cause); }
With no argument, or if the argument is the same as the receiver, return
the receiver. Otherwise, create a new exception object of the same class as
the receiver, but with a message equal to string.to_str
.
static VALUE exc_exception(int argc, VALUE *argv, VALUE self) { VALUE exc; if (argc == 0) return self; if (argc == 1 && self == argv[0]) return self; exc = rb_obj_clone(self); exc_initialize(argc, argv, exc); return exc; }
Return this exception's class name and message
static VALUE exc_inspect(VALUE exc) { VALUE str, klass; klass = CLASS_OF(exc); exc = rb_obj_as_string(exc); if (RSTRING_LEN(exc) == 0) { return rb_str_dup(rb_class_name(klass)); } str = rb_str_buf_new2("#<"); klass = rb_class_name(klass); rb_str_buf_append(str, klass); rb_str_buf_cat(str, ": ", 2); rb_str_buf_append(str, exc); rb_str_buf_cat(str, ">", 1); return str; }
Returns the result of invoking exception.to_s
. Normally this
returns the exception's message or name. By supplying a to_str method,
exceptions are agreeing to be used where Strings are expected.
static VALUE exc_message(VALUE exc) { return rb_funcall(exc, rb_intern("to_s"), 0, 0); }
Sets the backtrace information associated with exc
. The
backtrace
must be an array of String
objects or a single String in the format
described in #backtrace.
static VALUE exc_set_backtrace(VALUE exc, VALUE bt) { return rb_iv_set(exc, "bt", rb_check_backtrace(bt)); }