|
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 of
false
if the
upload()
call
was unsuccessful, indicating one of five possible errors. If an
error occurs when you call the
upload()
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 value
null
(so, before you can use or display
the
name
property, ensure that the value is set
and not
null
). In ActionScript 3.0, if you attempt
to access the
name
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 use
try..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
.
|
|
|
