What's a good way to extend Error in JavaScript?

javascript exception error-handling
Josh Gibson picture Josh Gibson · Sep 5, 2009 · Viewed 132.8k times · Source

I want to throw some things in my JS code and I want them to be instanceof Error, but I also want to have them be something else.

In Python, typically, one would subclass Exception.

What's the appropriate thing to do in JS?

Answer

Tero picture Tero · Mar 9, 2011

The only standard field Error object has is the message property. (See MDN, or EcmaScript Language Specification, section 15.11) Everything else is platform specific.

Mosts environments set the stack property, but fileName and lineNumber are practically useless to be used in inheritance.

So, the minimalistic approach is:

function MyError(message) {
    this.name = 'MyError';
    this.message = message;
    this.stack = (new Error()).stack;
}
MyError.prototype = new Error;  // <-- remove this if you do not 
                                //     want MyError to be instanceof Error

You could sniff the stack, unshift unwanted elements from it and extract information like fileName and lineNumber, but doing so requires information about the platform JavaScript is currently running upon. Most cases that is unnecessary -- and you can do it in post-mortem if you really want.

Safari is a notable exception. There is no stack property, but the throw keyword sets sourceURL and line properties of the object that is being thrown. Those things are guaranteed to be correct.

Test cases I used can be found here: JavaScript self-made Error object comparison.

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