Any type that you wish to throw or catch as an exception must be an instance of the Exception class. The simplest case is a new exception type directly below the root:

 data MyException = ThisException | ThatException
     deriving (Show, Typeable)

 instance Exception MyException

The default method definitions in the Exception class do what we need in this case. You can now throw and catch ThisException and ThatException as exceptions:

*Main> throw ThisException catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: MyException))
Caught ThisException

In more complicated examples, you may wish to define a whole hierarchy of exceptions:

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 -- Make the root exception type for all the exceptions in a compiler

 data SomeCompilerException = forall e . Exception e => SomeCompilerException e
     deriving Typeable

 instance Show SomeCompilerException where
     show (SomeCompilerException e) = show e

 instance Exception SomeCompilerException

 compilerExceptionToException :: Exception e => e -> SomeException
 compilerExceptionToException = toException . SomeCompilerException

 compilerExceptionFromException :: Exception e => SomeException -> Maybe e
 compilerExceptionFromException x = do
     SomeCompilerException a <- fromException x
     cast a

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 -- Make a subhierarchy for exceptions in the frontend of the compiler

 data SomeFrontendException = forall e . Exception e => SomeFrontendException e
     deriving Typeable

 instance Show SomeFrontendException where
     show (SomeFrontendException e) = show e

 instance Exception SomeFrontendException where
     toException = compilerExceptionToException
     fromException = compilerExceptionFromException

 frontendExceptionToException :: Exception e => e -> SomeException
 frontendExceptionToException = toException . SomeFrontendException

 frontendExceptionFromException :: Exception e => SomeException -> Maybe e
 frontendExceptionFromException x = do
     SomeFrontendException a <- fromException x
     cast a

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 -- Make an exception type for a particular frontend compiler exception

 data MismatchedParentheses = MismatchedParentheses
     deriving (Typeable, Show)

 instance Exception MismatchedParentheses where
     toException   = frontendExceptionToException
     fromException = frontendExceptionFromException

We can now catch a MismatchedParentheses exception as MismatchedParentheses, SomeFrontendException or SomeCompilerException, but not other types, e.g. IOException:

*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: MismatchedParentheses))
Caught MismatchedParentheses
*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: SomeFrontendException))
Caught MismatchedParentheses
*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: SomeCompilerException))
Caught MismatchedParentheses
*Main> throw MismatchedParentheses catch e -> putStrLn ("Caught " ++ show (e :: IOException))
*** Exception: MismatchedParentheses

This is the simplest of the exception-catching functions. It takes a single argument, runs it, and if an exception is raised the "handler" is executed, with the value of the exception passed as an argument. Otherwise, the result is returned as normal. For example:

   catch (readFile f)
         (\e -> do let err = show (e :: IOException)
                   hPutStr stderr ("Warning: Couldn't open " ++ f ++ ": " ++ err)
                   return "")

Note that we have to give a type signature to e, or the program will not typecheck as the type is ambiguous. While it is possible to catch exceptions of any type, see $catchall for an explanation of the problems with doing so.

For catching exceptions in pure (non-IO) expressions, see the function evaluate.

Note that due to Haskell's unspecified evaluation order, an expression may throw one of several possible exceptions: consider the expression (error "urk") + (1 `div` 0). Does the expression throw ErrorCall "urk", or DivideByZero?

The answer is "it might throw either"; the choice is non-deterministic. If you are catching any type of exception then you might catch either. If you are calling catch with type IO Int -> (ArithException -> IO Int) -> IO Int then the handler may get run with DivideByZero as an argument, or an ErrorCall "urk" exception may be propogated further up. If you call it again, you might get a the opposite behaviour. This is ok, because catch is an IO computation.

Note that the Prelude also exports a function called Prelude.catch with a similar type to Control.Exception.catch, except that the Prelude version only catches the IO and user families of exceptions (as required by Haskell 98).

We recommend either hiding the Prelude version of Prelude.catch when importing Control.Exception:

 import Prelude hiding (catch)

or importing Control.Exception qualified, to avoid name-clashes:

 import qualified Control.Exception as C

and then using C.catch

The function catchJust is like catch, but it takes an extra argument which is an exception predicate, a function which selects which type of exceptions we're interested in.

 catchJust (\e -> if isDoesNotExistErrorType (ioeGetErrorType e) then Just () else Nothing)
           (readFile f)
           (\_ -> do hPutStrLn stderr ("No such file: " ++ show f)
                     return "")

Any other exceptions which are not matched by the predicate are re-raised, and may be caught by an enclosing catch, catchJust, etc.

When you want to acquire a resource, do some work with it, and then release the resource, it is a good idea to use bracket, because bracket will install the necessary exception handler to release the resource in the event that an exception is raised during the computation. If an exception is raised, then bracket will re-raise the exception (after performing the release).

A common example is opening a file:

 bracket
   (openFile "filename" ReadMode)
   (hClose)
   (\fileHandle -> do { ... })

The arguments to bracket are in this order so that we can partially apply it, e.g.:

 withFile name mode = bracket (openFile name mode) hClose