In JavaScript, any object is throwable as exception

JavaScript, as any other modern language, supports exceptions and exception handling. What makes JavaScript different to other languages and runtimes is it is able to throw any object as an exception:

throw "hello world";
throw { text: "hello world" };
throw Error("hello world");
throw 1;
throw false;

Obviously no one is looking to throw a text as is but throwing useful objects with data in order to allow proper exception handling.

jOOPL's approach to exception handling

In jOOPL there is a design decision and it is that exceptions will not be never inheriting Error prototype nor internal exceptions throw Error instances.

For now Error object has different behavior depending on the browser vendor and version, and there are known issues when playing with custom error types.

jOOPL introduces a build-in Exception class available in the out-of-the-box joopl namespace that combines the best of exception handling when using Error object instances and true exception handling like one found in other software development platforms, languages and technologies.

Exception class can be inherited with jOOPL inheritance approach.

When either Exception or derived classes of itself are thrown using the throw new standard JavaScript syntax, jOOPL will extract useful debugging information and it will add this to the Exception instance (line number, stack trace, ...).

In addition, Exception and its derived classes have a default toString override which outputs not only the exception message but also the stack trace! See next picture for a sample:

Handling exceptions by type

Exceptions may be caught using try/catch statements and they can be filtered by type by using the standard instanceof operator:

try {
    throw new $global.joopl.ArgumentException({ argName: "id", reason: "'id' is mandatory" });
} catch(e) {
    if(e instanceof $global.joopl.ArgumentException) {
        // Do stuff here if thrown exception is an ArgumentException!
    } else {
        // Do other stuff if thrown exception is not an ArgumentException!
    }
}

Global exception handler

Since 2.4.x version jOOPL includes a global exception event which can be handled by multiple event handlers:

$namespace.using("joopl", function(joopl) {
    joopl.Environment.current.exceptionThrown.addEventListener(function(e) {
        // "e" contains a property "thrownException":
        if(e.thrownException instanceof joopl.ArgumentException) {
            // Do stuff if thrown exception is an ArgumentException
        }
    });

    // This throw will be listened by the event handler added in the Environment class singleton "exceptionThrown" event!
    throw new joopl.ArgumentException({ argName: "id" });
});

Note: Environment.exceptionThrown event occurs when any exception is instantiated, even if it's not already thrown.