Handling PL/SQL Errors

Predefined PL/SQL Exceptions

An internal exception is raised implicitly whenever your PL/SQL program violates an Oracle rule or exceeds a system-dependent limit. Every Oracle error has a number, but exceptions must be handled by name. So, PL/SQL predefines some common Oracle errors as exceptions. For example, PL/SQL raises the predefined exception NO_DATA_FOUND if a SELECT INTO statement returns no rows.

To handle other Oracle errors, you can use the OTHERS handler. The functions SQLCODE and SQLERRM are especially useful in the OTHERS handler because they return the Oracle error code and message text. Alternatively, you can use the pragma EXCEPTION_INIT to associate exception names with Oracle error codes.

PL/SQL declares predefined exceptions globally in package STANDARD, which defines the PL/SQL environment. So, you need not declare them yourself. You can write handlers for predefined exceptions using the names in the following list:

Exception	Oracle Error	SQLCODE Value
ACCESS_INTO_NULL	ORA-06530	-6530
CASE_NOT_FOUND	ORA-06592	-6592
COLLECTION_IS_NULL	ORA-06531	-6531
CURSOR_ALREADY_OPEN	ORA-06511	-6511
DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX	ORA-00001	-1
INVALID_CURSOR	ORA-01001	-1001
INVALID_NUMBER	ORA-01722	-1722
LOGIN_DENIED	ORA-01017	-1017
NO_DATA_FOUND	ORA-01403	+100
NOT_LOGGED_ON	ORA-01012	-1012
PROGRAM_ERROR	ORA-06501	-6501
ROWTYPE_MISMATCH	ORA-06504	-6504
SELF_IS_NULL	ORA-30625	-30625
STORAGE_ERROR	ORA-06500	-6500
SUBSCRIPT_BEYOND_COUNT	ORA-06533	-6533
SUBSCRIPT_OUTSIDE_LIMIT	ORA-06532	-6532
SYS_INVALID_ROWID	ORA-01410	-1410
TIMEOUT_ON_RESOURCE	ORA-00051	-51
TOO_MANY_ROWS	ORA-01422	-1422
VALUE_ERROR	ORA-06502	-6502
ZERO_DIVIDE	ORA-01476	-1476

Brief descriptions of the predefined exceptions follow:

Exception	Raised when ...
ACCESS_INTO_NULL	Your program attempts to assign values to the attributes of an uninitialized (atomically null) object.
CASE_NOT_FOUND	None of the choices in the WHEN clauses of a CASE statement is selected, and there is no ELSE clause.
COLLECTION_IS_NULL	Your program attempts to apply collection methods other than EXISTS to an uninitialized (atomically null) nested table or varray, or the program attempts to assign values to the elements of an uninitialized nested table or varray.
CURSOR_ALREADY_OPEN	Your program attempts to open an already open cursor. A cursor must be closed before it can be reopened. A cursor FOR loop automatically opens the cursor to which it refers. So, your program cannot open that cursor inside the loop.
DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX	Your program attempts to store duplicate values in a database column that is constrained by a unique index.
INVALID_CURSOR	Your program attempts an illegal cursor operation such as closing an unopened cursor.
INVALID_NUMBER	In a SQL statement, the conversion of a character string into a number fails because the string does not represent a valid number. (In procedural statements, VALUE_ERROR is raised.) This exception is also raised when the LIMIT-clause expression in a bulk FETCH statement does not evaluate to a positive number.
LOGIN_DENIED	Your program attempts to log on to Oracle with an invalid username and/or password.
NO_DATA_FOUND	A SELECT INTO statement returns no rows, or your program references a deleted element in a nested table or an uninitialized element in an index-by table. SQL aggregate functions such as AVG and SUM always return a value or a null. So, a SELECT INTO statement that calls an aggregate function never raises NO_DATA_FOUND. The FETCH statement is expected to return no rows eventually, so when that happens, no exception is raised.
NOT_LOGGED_ON	Your program issues a database call without being connected to Oracle.
PROGRAM_ERROR	PL/SQL has an internal problem.
ROWTYPE_MISMATCH	The host cursor variable and PL/SQL cursor variable involved in an assignment have incompatible return types. For example, when an open host cursor variable is passed to a stored subprogram, the return types of the actual and formal parameters must be compatible.
SELF_IS_NULL	Your program attempts to call a MEMBER method on a null instance. That is, the built-in parameter SELF (which is always the first parameter passed to a MEMBER method) is null.
STORAGE_ERROR	PL/SQL runs out of memory or memory has been corrupted.
SUBSCRIPT_BEYOND_COUNT	Your program references a nested table or varray element using an index number larger than the number of elements in the collection.
SUBSCRIPT_OUTSIDE_LIMIT	Your program references a nested table or varray element using an index number (-1 for example) that is outside the legal range.
SYS_INVALID_ROWID	The conversion of a character string into a universal rowid fails because the character string does not represent a valid rowid.
TIMEOUT_ON_RESOURCE	A time-out occurs while Oracle is waiting for a resource.
TOO_MANY_ROWS	A SELECT INTO statement returns more than one row.
VALUE_ERROR	An arithmetic, conversion, truncation, or size-constraint error occurs. For example, when your program selects a column value into a character variable, if the value is longer than the declared length of the variable, PL/SQL aborts the assignment and raises VALUE_ERROR. In procedural statements, VALUE_ERROR is raised if the conversion of a character string into a number fails. (In SQL statements, INVALID_NUMBER is raised.)
ZERO_DIVIDE	Your program attempts to divide a number by zero.

 

Defining Your Own PL/SQL Exceptions

PL/SQL lets you define exceptions of your own. Unlike predefined exceptions, user-defined exceptions must be declared and must be raised explicitly by RAISE statements.

Declaring PL/SQL Exceptions

Exceptions can be declared only in the declarative part of a PL/SQL block, subprogram, or package. You declare an exception by introducing its name, followed by the keyword EXCEPTION. In the following example, you declare an exception named past_due:

DECLARE
   past_due EXCEPTION;

Exception and variable declarations are similar. But remember, an exception is an error condition, not a data item. Unlike variables, exceptions cannot appear in assignment statements or SQL statements. However, the same scope rules apply to variables and exceptions.

Scope Rules for PL/SQL Exceptions

You cannot declare an exception twice in the same block. You can, however, declare the same exception in two different blocks.

Exceptions declared in a block are considered local to that block and global to all its sub-blocks. Because a block can reference only local or global exceptions, enclosing blocks cannot reference exceptions declared in a sub-block.

If you redeclare a global exception in a sub-block, the local declaration prevails. So, the sub-block cannot reference the global exception unless it was declared in a labeled block, in which case the following syntax is valid:

block_label.exception_name

The following example illustrates the scope rules:

DECLARE
   past_due EXCEPTION;
   acct_num NUMBER;
BEGIN
   DECLARE  ---------- sub-block begins
      past_due EXCEPTION;  -- this declaration prevails
      acct_num NUMBER;
   BEGIN
      ...
      IF ... THEN
         RAISE past_due;  -- this is not handled
      END IF;
   END;  ------------- sub-block ends
EXCEPTION
   WHEN past_due THEN  -- does not handle RAISEd exception
      ...
END;

The enclosing block does not handle the raised exception because the declaration of past_due in the sub-block prevails. Though they share the same name, the two past_due exceptions are different, just as the two acct_num variables share the same name but are different variables. Therefore, the RAISE statement and the WHEN clause refer to different exceptions. To have the enclosing block handle the raised exception, you must remove its declaration from the sub-block or define an OTHERS handler.

Associating a PL/SQL Exception with a Number: Pragma EXCEPTION_INIT

To handle error conditions (typically ORA- messages) that have no predefined name, you must use the OTHERS handler or the pragma EXCEPTION_INIT. A pragma is a compiler directive that is processed at compile time, not at run time.

In PL/SQL, the pragma EXCEPTION_INIT tells the compiler to associate an exception name with an Oracle error number. That lets you refer to any internal exception by name and to write a specific handler for it. When you see an error stack, or sequence of error messages, the one on top is the one that you can trap and handle.

You code the pragma EXCEPTION_INIT in the declarative part of a PL/SQL block, subprogram, or package using the syntax

PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT(exception_name, -Oracle_error_number);

where exception_name is the name of a previously declared exception and the number is a negative value corresponding to an ORA- error number. The pragma must appear somewhere after the exception declaration in the same declarative section, as shown in the following example:

DECLARE
   deadlock_detected EXCEPTION;
   PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT(deadlock_detected, -60);
BEGIN
   ... -- Some operation that causes an ORA-00060 error
EXCEPTION
   WHEN deadlock_detected THEN
      -- handle the error
END;

Defining Your Own Error Messages: Procedure RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR

The procedure RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR lets you issue user-defined ORA- error messages from stored subprograms. That way, you can report errors to your application and avoid returning unhandled exceptions.

To call RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR, use the syntax

raise_application_error(error_number, message[, {TRUE | FALSE}]);

where error_number is a negative integer in the range -20000 .. -20999 and message is a character string up to 2048 bytes long. If the optional third parameter is TRUE, the error is placed on the stack of previous errors. If the parameter is FALSE (the default), the error replaces all previous errors. RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR is part of package DBMS_STANDARD, and as with package STANDARD, you do not need to qualify references to it.

An application can call raise_application_error only from an executing stored subprogram (or method). When called, raise_application_error ends the subprogram and returns a user-defined error number and message to the application. The error number and message can be trapped like any Oracle error.

In the following example, you call raise_application_error if an employee's salary is missing:

CREATE PROCEDURE raise_salary (emp_id NUMBER, amount NUMBER) AS
   curr_sal NUMBER;
BEGIN
   SELECT sal INTO curr_sal FROM emp WHERE empno = emp_id;
   IF curr_sal IS NULL THEN
      /* Issue user-defined error message. */
      raise_application_error(-20101, 'Salary is missing');
   ELSE
      UPDATE emp SET sal = curr_sal + amount WHERE empno = emp_id;
   END IF;
END raise_salary;

The calling application gets a PL/SQL exception, which it can process using the error-reporting functions SQLCODE and SQLERRM in an OTHERS handler. Also, it can use the pragma EXCEPTION_INIT to map specific error numbers returned by raise_application_error to exceptions of its own, as the following Pro*C example shows:

EXEC SQL EXECUTE
   /* Execute embedded PL/SQL block using host 
      variables my_emp_id and my_amount, which were
      assigned values in the host environment. */
   DECLARE
      null_salary EXCEPTION;
      /* Map error number returned by raise_application_error
         to user-defined exception. */
      PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT(null_salary, -20101);
   BEGIN
      raise_salary(:my_emp_id, :my_amount);
   EXCEPTION
      WHEN null_salary THEN
         INSERT INTO emp_audit VALUES (:my_emp_id, ...);
   END;
END-EXEC;

This technique allows the calling application to handle error conditions in specific exception handlers.

 

Retrieving the Error Code and Error Message: SQLCODE and SQLERRM

In an exception handler, you can use the built-in functions SQLCODE and SQLERRM to find out which error occurred and to get the associated error message. For internal exceptions, SQLCODE returns the number of the Oracle error. The number that SQLCODE returns is negative unless the Oracle error is no data found, in which case SQLCODE returns +100. SQLERRM returns the corresponding error message. The message begins with the Oracle error code.

For user-defined exceptions, SQLCODE returns +1 and SQLERRM returns the message: User-Defined Exception.

unless you used the pragma EXCEPTION_INIT to associate the exception name with an Oracle error number, in which case SQLCODE returns that error number and SQLERRM returns the corresponding error message. The maximum length of an Oracle error message is 512 characters including the error code, nested messages, and message inserts such as table and column names.

If no exception has been raised, SQLCODE returns zero and SQLERRM returns the message: ORA-0000: normal, successful completion.

You can pass an error number to SQLERRM, in which case SQLERRM returns the message associated with that error number. Make sure you pass negative error numbers to SQLERRM. In the following example, you pass positive numbers and so get unwanted results:

DECLARE
   err_msg VARCHAR2(100);
BEGIN
   /* Get all Oracle error messages. */
   FOR err_num IN 1..9999 LOOP
      err_msg := SQLERRM(err_num); -- wrong; should be -err_num
      INSERT INTO errors VALUES (err_msg);
   END LOOP;
END;

Passing a positive number to SQLERRM always returns the message user-defined exception unless you pass +100, in which case SQLERRM returns the message no data found. Passing a zero to SQLERRM always returns the message normal, successful completion.

You cannot use SQLCODE or SQLERRM directly in a SQL statement. Instead, you must assign their values to local variables, then use the variables in the SQL statement, as shown in the following example:

DECLARE
   err_num NUMBER;
   err_msg VARCHAR2(100);
BEGIN
   ...
EXCEPTION
   WHEN OTHERS THEN
      err_num := SQLCODE;
      err_msg := SUBSTR(SQLERRM, 1, 100);
      INSERT INTO errors VALUES (err_num, err_msg);
END;

The string function SUBSTR ensures that a VALUE_ERROR exception (for truncation) is not raised when you assign the value of SQLERRM to err_msg. The functions SQLCODE and SQLERRM are especially useful in the OTHERS exception handler because they tell you which internal exception was raised.

Note: When using pragma RESTRICT_REFERENCES to assert the purity of a stored function, you cannot specify the constraints WNPS and RNPS if the function calls SQLCODE or SQLERRM.