Unlike compiled application code that halts code execution upon an unhandled exception, a T-SQL might continue code execution afterward. T-SQL developers must include error checking/handling is to ensure code doesn’t continue down the “happy” path oblivious to an error, report the error to the caller, perform any necessary cleanup operations (typically ROLLBACK) and continue/halt execution as desired. The script below shows how one might accomplish this without structured error handling:

This script results in the error:

Unstructured error handling like this is especially a pain for multi-statement scripts and stored procedures. One has to include repetitive “IF @@ERROR” check to detect errors after each statement and error-prone unstructured GOTO code. It’s easy to miss error checking/handling bugs in unit testing.

On a positive note, no T-SQL code is necessary to raise the error; SQL Server automatically reports errors to the calling application without any T-SQL code to do so (unless TRY/CATCH is used). This guarantees the calling application is notified of errors during execution.

The introduction of structured error handling (TRY/CATCH) in SQL 2005 is a both a blessing and a curse. The good is that TRY/CATCH avoids the repetitive, error prone and ugly procedural code needed to check @@ERROR after each T-SQL statement and allows one to more easily centralize error handling. The structured error-handling paradigm in T-SQL is more aligned with most application languages.

Consider the equivalent script with TRY/CATCH:

I really like the way structured error handling catches errors declaratively with centralized error handling. But TRY/CATCH introduces a couple of issues. Foremost is reporting of the error to the caller. A caught error prevents the error message from being returned to the client. When TRY/CATCH is employed, the developer assumes responsibility to notify the application that an error occurred. Failure to do so will result in a silent error undetectable by the calling application, which is seldom desirable. Using TRY/CATCH necessitates that you write a bit of code in the CATCH block to capture, report and/or log error details as well as control code flow after the error.

Another downside of TRY/CATCH before Denali is that you cannot raise the original error because RAISERROR does not allow a system error number to be specified (8134 in this example). Consequently, the divide by zero system error here cannot be raised in the CATCH block; a user-defined error in the 50000+ error number range must be raised instead, obfuscating the original error and line number. So instead of returning error information natively, you must write code to return original error details by some other means, such as in the error message text. This often leads to inconsistencies in the way errors are reported.

Denali introduces a simple THROW statement. THROW in a CATCH block with no parameters raises the caught error and stops further code execution unless an outer CATCH block exists. This greatly simplifies CATCH block error reporting and control flow code since this THROW behavior is exactly what one typically does after handling a T-SQL error. Furthermore, unlike RAISERROR, THROW retains the original error number, message text, state, severity and line number. This is the biggest T-SQL error handling enhancement since the introduction of TRY/CATCH in SQL Server 2005.

The THROW example below raises the original error and stops further code execution and is less verbose and error-prone than other methods:

There are only a couple of scenarios I can think of not to use THROW in a CATCH block. One is when you need to continue code execution in the same scope after an error. Another is in an outermost catch block when you want to prevent the error from being returned to the client. However, these cases are the exception (no pun intended) rather than the rule.

THROW is a simple, yet powerful extension to SQL Server error handling. I’ll discuss some other enhancements to the core database engine as outlined in the What’s New section of the SQL Server “Denali” Books Online in future posts as well.