I’m happy to announce the release of define_exception 0.0.2. This is the
initial public release of this library.
= Summary
This gem provides a dry way of defining custom exception in our
application with default messages so that you don’t have to constantly
define a message when using raise.
= Typical Exception Definition
It is common in ruby applications to write a custom exception to
indicate a special error has occurred in your application
class MyCustomException < RuntimeError; end #nodoc
This can then be invoked by raise with a message
raise( MyCustomException, 'Your custom error message here' ) unless
…
If you raise this exception multiple times but want the same error
message to be presented to the user you have to repeat the above
statement which is cumbersome. You could define a hash for common error
messages but this divorces the exception from the message it is to
deliver.
= A Better Way
A better way of approaching the problem is to define the exception class
with a default message while preserving the ability to override it using
raise. This may sound trivial but it is not so straightforward when you
subclass off of the ruby standard exception classes. This can be done
easily with this gem using any of the following constructs:
class MyClass
define_exception 'MyTestException', 'This is my default message'
define_exception :AnotherTestException, 'This is the default
message for another exception’
define_exception :yet_another_exception, ‘There is always more
than one way’
…
end
Syntactically this has more feel like attr_accessor and is succinct. The
first argument is either a string or symbol that defines the name of the
exception. Usage of the underscore in the symbol name automatically gets
converted to camel case for the exception name. The second argument is
the string to define the default message. This allows simple error
handling to occur repeatedly
raise MyTestException unless ...
The ability to override the default message is still possible as well
raise MyTestException, 'This is a one time error message'
= Changing the Parent Class
By default the parent class is RuntimeError. For cases where you need a
different parent class you can supply the class as an optional third
argument
Class MyClass
define_exception 'MyTestException', 'This is my default message',
ArgumentError
…
end
= Installation
The gem is available from rubygems.org:
gem install define_exception
= Usage
require 'rubygems'
require 'define_exception'
include DefineException
class MyTest
define_exception 'MyTestError', 'Test Error Message'
...
end
= Complete Information
I hope the community finds this useful.
Wes B.