inessential by Brent Simmons

Elementary Swift: Catching the Actual Error

I’ve written 100,000 lines of Swift code, maybe? But, even after all this code, I still have a blind spot with Swift try/catch. I’m writing this up just in case you do too.

My problem was with getting the actual error in a catch block. When I learned that there was a magic error variable, my problem was partly solved, because I could do this: catch { doSomething(with: error) }.

So that’s what I always did. But then, just yesterday, I finally had a case where I wanted to catch a specific type of error — and I just couldn’t figure it out.

I looked at the documentation on Swift error handling, which shows catching a specific error type like this: catch is VendingMachineError. (That’s the actual example! No, I’m not writing code for vending machines.)

I figured that, inside the block, there would be that magic error variable, and it would be typed as VendingMachineError. Like this: catch is VendingMachineError { doSomething(with: error) }.

Nope! That’s not how it works. The magic error variable does not exist in this case.

So…

I asked some friends — Dave DeLong and Tim Ekl — who helped me. The answer was this:

catch let error as VendingMachineError { doSomething(with: error) }

The key to this is that you use Swift patterns with the catch, and Swift patterns support variable binding. But patterns are a topic I don’t fully get yet, either.

(For instance, why do we use case sometimes outside of a switch? I don’t actually know.)

* * *

Anyway. This post has four points. One is to help anyone else who runs across this problem. Hopefully a search will land them here.

The second is to suggest that the Swift error-handling documentation really should have this as an example — catching an error of a specific type, and getting a reference to that variable, is (or should be) a common thing to want to do.

The third is a reminder that even long-time programmers are still sometimes learning basic stuff. If your brain likes to justify your impostor syndrome with various tests — like “I’m not a real programmer till I know everything about Swift” — then tell your brain to hit the road.

The last is a reminder that having smart friends is always a good idea. :)