Alex Rivera | Logout

How do I create a custom Error in JavaScript?

Asked 2009-04-23T22:35:21.920
303

For some reason it looks like constructor delegation doesn't work in the following snippet:

function NotImplementedError() { 
  Error.apply(this, arguments); 
}
NotImplementedError.prototype = new Error();

var nie = new NotImplementedError("some message");
console.log("The message is: '"+nie.message+"'")

Running this gives The message is: ''. Any ideas as to why, or if there is a better way to create a new Error subclass? Is there a problem with applying to the native Error constructor that I don't know about?

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8

This section of the standard may explain why the Error.apply call doesn't initialize the object:

15.11.1 The Error Constructor Called as a Function

When Error is called as a function rather than as a constructor, it creates and initialises a new Error object. Thus the function call Error(...) is equivalent to the object creation expression new Error(...) with the same arguments.

In this case the Error function probably determines that it's not being called as a constructor, so it returns a new Error instance rather than initializing the this object.

Testing with the following code seems to demonstrate that this is in fact what's happening:

function NotImplementedError() { 
   var returned = Error.apply(this, arguments);
   console.log("returned.message = '" + returned.message + "'");
   console.log("this.message = '" + this.message + "'");
}
NotImplementedError.prototype = new Error();

var nie = new NotImplementedError("some message");

The following output is generated when this is run:

returned.message = 'some message'
this.message = ''
answered 2011-08-12T06:31:27.520

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