JavaScript Errors - Throw and Try to Catch

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The try statement lets you test a block of code for errors.

The catch statement lets you handle the error.

The throw statement lets you create custom errors.

The finally statement lets you execute code, after try and catch, regardless of the result.

Errors Will Happen!

When executing JavaScript code, different errors can occur.

Errors can be coding errors made by the programmer, errors due to wrong input, and other unforeseeable things.

Example

In this example we have written alert as adddlert to deliberately produce an error:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p id="demo"></p>

<script>
try {
adddlert("Welcome guest!");
}
catch(err) {
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = err.message;
}
</script>

</body>
</html>

Try it Yourself

The catch block catches addlert as an error, and executes code to handle it.

JavaScript try and catch

The try statement allows you to define a block of code to be tested for errors while it is being executed.

The catch statement allows you to define a block of code to be executed, if an error occurs in the try block.

The JavaScript statements try and catch come in pairs:

try {
Block of code to try
}
catch(err) {
Block of code to handle errors
}

JavaScript can Raise Errors

When an error occurs, JavaScript will normally stop, and generate an error message.

The technical term for this is: JavaScript will raise (or throw) an exception.

The throw Statement

The throw statement allows you to create a custom error.

Technically you can raise (throw) an exception.

The exception can be a JavaScript String, a Number, a Boolean or an Object:

throw "Too big"; // throw a text
throw 500; // throw a number

If you use throw together with try and catch, you can control program flow and generate custom error messages.

Input Validation Example

This example examines input. If the value is wrong, an exception (err) is thrown.

The exception (err) is caught by the catch statement and a custom error message is displayed:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p>Please input a number between 5 and 10:</p>

<input id="demo" type="text">
<button type="button" onclick="myFunction()">Test Input</button>
<p id="message"></p>

<script>
function myFunction() {
    var message, x;
    message = document.getElementById("message");
    message.innerHTML = "";
    x = document.getElementById("demo").value;
    try {
        if(x == "") throw "empty";
        if(isNaN(x)) throw "not a number";
        x = Number(x);
        if(x < 5) throw "too low";
        if(x > 10) throw "too high";
    }
    catch(err) {
        message.innerHTML = "Input is " + err;
    }
}
</script>

</body>
</html>

Try it Yourself

HTML Validation

The code above is just an example.

Modern browsers will often use a combination of JavaScript and built-in HTML validation, using predefined validation rules defined in HTML attributes:

<input id="demo" type="number" min="5" max="10" step="1"

You can read more about forms validation in a later chapter of this tutorial.

The finally Statement

The finally statement lets you execute code, after try and catch, regardless of the result:

try {
    Block of code to try
}
catch(err) {
    Block of code to handle errors
}
finally {
    Block of code to be executed regardless of the try / catch result
}

Example

Try it Yourself

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