A few months ago, I was putting together an internal doc exploring different ways to handle errors and exceptions. Here are six common approaches that I could think of
- throw a general exception with a detailed error message
- return a special value, like null, suggesting an error
- return integer codes - 0 for success and non-zero for errors
- pass error obj as an arg and let the calling function populate it
- monads with optional states for different error types
- returning the error object as the return value of the function
There is no one way or a one-size-fits-all approach. The best choice depends on language, team practice, and preferences. But knowing the options does help in picking an elegant one suited for your use case.
Hope it helps.
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