Nim Error Handling

Nim Error Handling

Rules

Choose the Failure Channel

• Return bool when success or failure is the whole result.
• Return Option[T] when success returns a value but absence is expected.
• Use bool with a var parameter only when filling or mutating caller-owned storage is part of the API.
• Convert per-item failures into structured outcomes at the batch boundary. Keep intermediate steps exception-based.
• Treat a failed condition as either recoverable or a programming bug, never both.

Add Only Real Failure Paths

• Read what the current operation promises and how each called API reports failure.
• If a successful call guarantees valid output, do not add another raising nil, size, or range check.
• If a condition breaks no documented promise, remove the raising check and document the valid behavior.
• Report failure when the result cannot safely satisfy its API or the operation cannot meet its documented promise.
• If an operation requires a stronger guarantee than the API it calls, validate that guarantee in that operation.

Place Boundaries

• Let failures propagate through intermediate steps.
• Catch only where the handler can recover, translate, or record the failure.
• At a batch boundary, record recoverable per-item failures.

Choose Exception Types

• For a contract failure caused by caller input or the environment, raise the closest existing CatchableError.
• Separate except branches when handling differs. Group exception types when handling is identical.
• Put child exception types before their parents in except branches.
• Catch CatchableError only when the boundary handles every recoverable error. Do not catch bare Exception.
• Add a custom exception only when callers handle it differently. Derive it from the closest existing CatchableError subtype.
• Do not use Defect for recoverable failures; it represents a programming bug and is not caught by CatchableError.
• Use assert for conditions whose failure means a programming bug: preconditions, internal invariants, and state guards.
• Do not use range conversions for recoverable validation, e.g. Positive(parseInt(s)); invalid values raise RangeDefect.

Translate Errors

• Translate errors only at module or subsystem boundaries. Add local context and preserve the original reason.

Cleanup and Contracts

• Use try/finally for cleanup.
• Use {.raises: [].} when a proc must not raise. Leave raising procs unannotated.

Workflow

1. Read the contracts. Note what this operation promises, how called APIs report failure, and what they guarantee on success.
2. Decide whether failure is needed. Name the documented promise that the condition would break. If there is none, remove the check.
3. Place the decision. Document valid behavior as success, or report failure in the first operation whose promise is broken.
4. Place catch boundaries. Catch only where the handler can recover, translate, or record the failure.
5. Enforce non-raising contracts. Add {.raises: [].} only to procs that must not raise.

Common Mistakes

References

• references/batch_preview_boundary.md — Per-item batch failures with reporting failures allowed to escape.