Root of the Iteratee exception hierarchy. IFException derives from Control.Exception.SomeException. EnumException, IterException, and all inheritants are descendents of IFException.

Any type that you wish to throw or catch as an exception must be an instance of the Exception class. The simplest case is a new exception type directly below the root:

data MyException = ThisException | ThatException
    deriving Show

instance Exception MyException

The default method definitions in the Exception class do what we need in this case. You can now throw and catch ThisException and ThatException as exceptions:

*Main> throw ThisException `catch` \e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: MyException))
Caught ThisException

In more complicated examples, you may wish to define a whole hierarchy of exceptions:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Make the root exception type for all the exceptions in a compiler

data SomeCompilerException = forall e . Exception e => SomeCompilerException e

instance Show SomeCompilerException where
    show (SomeCompilerException e) = show e

instance Exception SomeCompilerException

compilerExceptionToException :: Exception e => e -> SomeException
compilerExceptionToException = toException . SomeCompilerException

compilerExceptionFromException :: Exception e => SomeException -> Maybe e
compilerExceptionFromException x = do
    SomeCompilerException a <- fromException x
    cast a

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Make a subhierarchy for exceptions in the frontend of the compiler

data SomeFrontendException = forall e . Exception e => SomeFrontendException e

instance Show SomeFrontendException where
    show (SomeFrontendException e) = show e

instance Exception SomeFrontendException where
    toException = compilerExceptionToException
    fromException = compilerExceptionFromException

frontendExceptionToException :: Exception e => e -> SomeException
frontendExceptionToException = toException . SomeFrontendException

frontendExceptionFromException :: Exception e => SomeException -> Maybe e
frontendExceptionFromException x = do
    SomeFrontendException a <- fromException x
    cast a

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Make an exception type for a particular frontend compiler exception

data MismatchedParentheses = MismatchedParentheses
    deriving Show

instance Exception MismatchedParentheses where
    toException   = frontendExceptionToException
    fromException = frontendExceptionFromException

We can now catch a MismatchedParentheses exception as MismatchedParentheses, SomeFrontendException or SomeCompilerException, but not other types, e.g. IOException:

*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: MismatchedParentheses))
Caught MismatchedParentheses
*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: SomeFrontendException))
Caught MismatchedParentheses
*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: SomeCompilerException))
Caught MismatchedParentheses
*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: IOException))
*** Exception: MismatchedParentheses

The iteratee diverged upon receiving EOF.

Create an enumerator exception from a String.

The enumerator received an IterException it could not handle.

A class for iteratee exceptions. Only inheritants of IterException should be instances of this class.

Root of iteratee exceptions.

A seek request within an Iteratee.

The Iteratee needs more data but received EOF.

An Iteratee exception specified by a String.

Create an EnumException from a string.

Create an iteratee exception from a string. This convenience function wraps IterStringException and toException.

Convert an IterException to an EnumException. Meant to be used within an Enumerator to signify that it could not handle the IterException.