Documentation

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 SomeException type is the root of the exception type hierarchy. When an exception of type e is thrown, behind the scenes it is encapsulated in a SomeException.

A class for monads in which exceptions may be thrown.

Instances should obey the following law:

throwM e >> x = throwM e

In other words, throwing an exception short-circuits the rest of the monadic computation.

A class for monads which allow exceptions to be caught, in particular exceptions which were thrown by throwM.

Instances should obey the following law:

catch (throwM e) f = f e

Note that the ability to catch an exception does not guarantee that we can deal with all possible exit points from a computation. Some monads, such as continuation-based stacks, allow for more than just a success/failure strategy, and therefore catch cannot be used by those monads to properly implement a function such as finally. For more information, see MonadMask.

A class for monads which provide for the ability to account for all possible exit points from a computation, and to mask asynchronous exceptions. Continuation-based monads are invalid instances of this class.

Instances should ensure that, in the following code:

fg = f `finally` g

The action g is called regardless of what occurs within f, including async exceptions. Some monads allow f to abort the computation via other effects than throwing an exception. For simplicity, we will consider aborting and throwing an exception to be two forms of "throwing an error".

If f and g both throw an error, the error thrown by fg depends on which errors we're talking about. In a monad transformer stack, the deeper layers override the effects of the inner layers; for example, ExceptT e1 (Except e2) a represents a value of type Either e2 (Either e1 a), so throwing both an e1 and an e2 will result in Left e2. If f and g both throw an error from the same layer, instances should ensure that the error from g wins.

Effects other than throwing an error are also overriden by the deeper layers. For example, StateT s Maybe a represents a value of type s -> Maybe (a, s), so if an error thrown from f causes this function to return Nothing, any changes to the state which f also performed will be erased. As a result, g will see the state as it was before f. Once g completes, f's error will be rethrown, so g' state changes will be erased as well. This is the normal interaction between effects in a monad transformer stack.

By contrast, lifted-base's version of finally always discards all of g's non-IO effects, and g never sees any of f's non-IO effects, regardless of the layer ordering and regardless of whether f throws an error. This is not the result of interacting effects, but a consequence of MonadBaseControl's approach.

Async safe version of bracketOnError

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Async safe version of finally

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Async safe version of bracket_

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Async safe version of bracket

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Async safe version of onException

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

try specialized to catch all synchronous exceptions

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Same as upstream try, but will not catch asynchronous exceptions

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Flipped version of catchAny

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

catch specialized to catch all synchronous exception

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Same as upstream catch, but will not catch asynchronous exceptions

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Synonym for throw

Since: safe-exceptions-0.1.0.0

Type that represents exceptions used in cases when a particular codepath is not meant to be ever executed, but happens to be executed anyway.

Generate a pure value which, when forced, will synchronously throw the exception wrapped into Bug data type.

Pattern synonym to easy pattern matching on exceptions. So intead of writing something like this:

isNonCriticalExc e
    | Just (_ :: NodeAttackedError) <- fromException e = True
    | Just DialogUnexpected{} <- fromException e = True
    | otherwise = False

you can use Exc pattern synonym:

isNonCriticalExc = case
    Exc (_ :: NodeAttackedError) -> True  -- matching all exceptions of type NodeAttackedError
    Exc DialogUnexpected{} -> True
    _ -> False

This pattern is bidirectional. You can use Exc e instead of toException e.

Throws error for Maybe if Nothing is given. Operates over MonadError.