Use try/catch to Handle Errors

You can use a try/catch statement to execute code after your program encounters an error. try/catch statements can be useful if you:

Want to finish the program in another way that avoids errors
Need to clean up unwanted side effects of the error
Have many problematic input parameters or commands

Arrange try/catch statements into blocks of code, similar to this pseudocode:

try
  try block...
catch
  catch block...
end

If an error occurs within the try block, MATLAB^® skips any remaining commands in the try block and executes the commands in the catch block. If no error occurs within try block, MATLAB skips the entire catch block.

For example, a try/catch statement can prevent the need to throw errors. Consider the combinations function that returns the number of combinations of k elements from n elements:

function com = combinations(n,k)
    com = factorial(n)/(factorial(k)*factorial(n-k));
end

MATLAB throws an error whenever k > n. You cannot construct a set with more elements, k, than elements you possess, n. Using a try/catch statement, you can avoid the error and execute this function regardless of the order of inputs:

function com = robust_combine(n,k)
    try
       com = factorial(n)/(factorial(k)*factorial(n-k));
    catch
       com = factorial(k)/(factorial(n)*factorial(k-n));
    end
end

robust_combine treats any order of integers as valid inputs:

C1 = robust_combine(8,4)
C2 = robust_combine(4,8)

Optionally, you can capture more information about errors if a variable follows your catch statement:

catch MExc

MExc is an MException class object that contains more information about the thrown error. To learn more about accessing information from MException objects, see Exception Handling in a MATLAB Application.

Use try/catch to Handle Errors

See Also