Error handling in ActionScript 3.0
Since many applications can run without building the logic to handle errors, developers are tempted to postpone building error handling into their applications. However, without error handling, an application can easily stall or frustrate the user if something doesn't work as expected. ActionScript 2.0 has an Error class that allows you to build logic into custom functions to throw an exception with a specific message. Because error handling is critical for making a user-friendly application, ActionScript 3.0 includes an expanded architecture for catching errors.
Note: While the ActionScript 3.0 Reference for the Adobe Flash Platform documents the exceptions thrown by many methods, it might not include all possible exceptions for each method. A method might throw an exception for syntax errors or other problems that are not noted explicitly in the method description, even when the description does list some of the exceptions a method throws.
ActionScript 3.0 error-handling elements
ActionScript 3.0 includes many tools for error handling, including:
Error classes. ActionScript 3.0 includes a broad range of Error classes to expand the scope of situations that can produce error objects. Each Error class helps applications handle and respond to specific error conditions, whether they are related to system errors (like a MemoryError condition), coding errors (like an ArgumentError condition), networking and communication errors (like a URIError condition), or other situations. For more information on each class, see Comparing the Error classes.
Fewer silent failures. In earlier versions of Flash Player, errors were generated and reported only if you explicitly used the
throw
statement. For Flash Player 9 and later Flash runtimes, native ActionScript methods and properties throw run-time errors. These errors allow you to handle these exceptions more effectively when they occur, then react to each exception, individually.Clear error messages displayed during debugging. When you are using the debugger version of a Flash runtime, problematic code or situations generate robust error messages, which help you easily identify reasons why a particular block of code fails. These messages make fixing errors more efficient. For more information, see Working with the debugger versions of Flash runtimes.
Precise errors allow for clear error messages displayed to users. In previous versions of Flash Player, the
FileReference.upload()
method returned a Boolean value offalse
if theupload()
call was unsuccessful, indicating one of five possible errors. If an error occurs when you call theupload()
method in ActionScript 3.0, four specific errors help you display more accurate error messages to end users.Refined error handling. Distinct errors are thrown for many common situations. For example, in ActionScript 2.0, before a FileReference object has been populated, the
name
property has the valuenull
(so, before you can use or display thename
property, ensure that the value is set and notnull
). In ActionScript 3.0, if you attempt to access thename
property before it has been populated, Flash Player or AIR throws an IllegalOperationError, which informs you that the value has not been set, and you can usetry..catch..finally
blocks to handle the error. For more information see Using try..catch..finally statements.No significant performance drawbacks. Using
try..catch..finally
blocks to handle errors takes little or no additional resources compared to previous versions of ActionScript.An ErrorEvent class that allows you to build listeners for specific asynchronous error events. For more information see Responding to error events and status.
Error-handling strategies
As long as your application doesn't encounter a problematic condition, it can still run successfully if you don't build error-handling logic into your code. However, if you don't actively handle errors and your application does encounter a problem, your users will never know why your application fails when it does.
There are different ways you can approach error handling in your application. The following list summarizes the three major options for handling errors:
Use
try..catch..finally
statements. These statements catch synchronous errors as they occur. You can nest your statements into a hierarchy to catch exceptions at various levels of code execution. For more information, see Using try..catch..finally statements.Create your own custom error objects. You can use the Error class to create your own custom error objects to track specific operations in your application that are not covered by built-in error types. Then you can use
try..catch..finally
statements on your custom error objects. For more information see Creating custom error classes.Write event listeners and handlers to respond to error events. By using this strategy, you can create global error handlers that let you handle similar events without duplicating much code in
try..catch..finally
blocks. You are also more likely to catch asynchronous errors using this approach. For more information, see Responding to error events and status.