Part 5. Error Handling

Most programming languages need a way to handle failure.

10 items

Section	Title
1	Why Zig Has No Exceptions
2	Error Sets
3	Error Union Types
4	`try`
5	`catch`
6	`errdefer`
7	Propagating Errors
8	Designing Error APIs
9	Custom Error Types
10	Panic and Crash Behavior

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Why Zig Has No Exceptions

Most programming languages need a way to handle failure.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Error Sets

An error set is a group of possible error names.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Error Union Types

An error union type means:

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

`try`

try is the most common way to handle errors in Zig.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

`catch`

catch handles an error at the place where it happens.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

`errdefer`

errdefer is a cleanup tool.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Propagating Errors

Propagating an error means passing it to the caller instead of handling it immediately.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Designing Error APIs

An error API is the part of your function signature that tells callers how failure works.

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Custom Error Types

Most Zig programs start with small error sets:

Writes › Book › Zig › Part 5. Error Handling ›

Panic and Crash Behavior

Errors are for expected failures.