Errors¶

Idio handles errors through the use of conditions. Conditions, or rather, their handlers, are a complex subject but at this stage we can say that when we do something problematic Idio will raise a condition and, as we haven’t done anything, the default handlers will cause Idio to exit.

We can write our own handler around particular blocks of code where we can react to conditions we anticipate or raise the condition to a higher authority for them to decide.

Here we need to be a little leery as conditions and handlers are working subtly differently to more common exception mechanisms.

In Idio we are handling the condition raised from an individual expression within the dynamic scope (the runtime, if you will) of the block of code we are wrapping. The computation has not been unwound so we are at liberty to have the failed expression appear to have returned with a suitable value.

Of course, with a lot of problems, a missing file, say, there is nothing useful to be substituted as the return value for open-input-file, say. In this case we would want to return from the trap truncating the computation. Such a trap-return behaves like other languages’ try/except blocks.

trap itself takes three arguments: a condition type (or list of condition types); a unary function which will be passed the condition instance; and the expression (usually a block) that the trap protects.

If no condition is raised, the trap returns the result of the last expression evaluated in the block.

Let’s try some risky behaviour. Notice in all these examples, the condition is raised in a function that is lexically outside of the block the traps are protecting but in a function called during the running of the block and hence why the condition is captured.

error-handling-1.idio¶

define (div n d) {
  ;; risky division
  n / d
}

trap ^rt-divide-by-zero-error (function (c) {
  ;; send a message to stderr, of course
  eprintf "caught a risky division!\n"

  ;; the division failed so let's return #f in its place
  #f
}) {
  printf "a: 1 / 0 is %s\n" (div 1 0)

  ;; we will add 3 to the result of calling div
  printf "b: 3 + (1 / 0) is %s\n" (3 + (div 1 0))
}

printf "all done!\n"

$ idio error-handling-1
caught a risky division!
a: 1 / 0 is #f
caught a risky division!

reset-condition-handler: ^rt-parameter-type-error: #<SI ^rt-parameter-type-error message:"bad parameter type: '#f' a constant is not a number" location:"x.idio:line 6:binary-+" detail:"">
reset-condition-handler: restoring ABORT continuation #1: "ABORT to main => exit (probably badly)"
sigsetjmp: script failed: exit (1)

Hmm. Not so clever, #f is not a valid type for +.

Let’s try behaving like normal try/except handlers by calling trap-return:

error-handling-2.idio¶

define (div n d) {
  n / d
}

trap ^rt-divide-by-zero-error (function (c) {
  eprintf "caught a risky division!\n"

  ;; the division failed so let's return from the whole trap
  trap-return #f
}) {
  printf "a: 1 / 0 is %s\n" (div 1 0)

  printf "b: 3 + (1 / 0) is %s\n" (3 + (div 1 0))
}
;; trap did return #f but we didn't capture it

printf "all done!\n"

$ idio error-handling-2
caught a risky division!
all done!

That’s more familiar behaviour.

Finally, just for completeness, let’s pass the condition up to a higher authority – although we know in this case it’s likely to be the default handlers which will exit the program:

error-handling-3.idio¶

define (div n d) {
  n / d
}

trap ^rt-divide-by-zero-error (function (c) {
  ;; we can make a call to get a familiar report but with our own
  ;; message
  condition-report "risky division!" c

  ;; the division failed so let's raise the condition to a higher
  ;; authority
  raise c
}) {
  printf "a: 1 / 0 is %s\n" (div 1 0)

  printf "b: 3 + (1 / 0) is %s\n" (3 + (div 1 0))
}

;; In general, we may or may not get here depending on any other trap
;; handling between us and the default handlers.  In this case, there
;; are no other handlers and the default handlers will have exit the
;; program

printf "all done!\n"

$ idio error-handling-3
risky division!:x.idio:line 3:binary-/:^rt-divide-by-zero-error:bignum divide by zero: number(s) '(1 0)'

reset-condition-handler: ^rt-divide-by-zero-error: #<SI ^rt-divide-by-zero-error message:"bignum divide by zero" location:"x.idio:line 3:binary-/" detail:"" number:(1 0)>
reset-condition-handler: restoring ABORT continuation #1: "ABORT to main => exit (probably badly)"
sigsetjmp: script failed: exit (1)

Here you can see our "risky division!" report with much of the same information before the expected exit of the program.

Last built at 2024-05-21T06:11:39Z+0000 from 77077af (dev) for Idio 0.3