EXCEPTION OTHER CLAUSE ( WHEN OTHERS Clause )

The WHEN OTHERS clause is used to trap all remaining exceptions that have not been handled by your Named System Exceptions and Named Programmer-Defined

Exceptions.

The syntax for the WHEN OTHERS clause in a procedure is:

CREATE [OR REPLACE] PROCEDURE procedure_name

[ (parameter [,parameter]) ]

IS

[declaration_section]

BEGIN

executable_section

EXCEPTION

WHEN exception_name1 THEN

[statements]

WHEN exception_name2 THEN

[statements]

WHEN exception_name_n THEN

[statements]

WHEN OTHERS THEN

[statements]

END [procedure_name];

The syntax for the WHEN OTHERS clause in a function is:

CREATE [OR REPLACE] FUNCTION function_name

[ (parameter [,parameter]) ]

RETURN return_datatype

IS | AS

[declaration_section]

BEGIN

executable_section

EXCEPTION

WHEN exception_name1 THEN

[statements]

WHEN exception_name2 THEN

[statements]

WHEN exception_name_n THEN

[statements]

WHEN OTHERS THEN

[statements]

END [function_name];

Here is an example of a procedure that uses a WHEN OTHERS clause:

CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE add_new_order

(order_id_in IN NUMBER, sales_in IN NUMBER)

IS

no_sales EXCEPTION;

BEGIN

IF sales_in = 0 THEN

RAISE no_sales;

ELSE

INSERT INTO orders (order_id, total_sales )

VALUES ( order_id_in, sales_in );

END IF;

EXCEPTION

WHEN DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX THEN

raise_application_error (-20001,'You have tried to insert a duplicate order_id.');

WHEN no_sales THEN

raise_application_error (-20001,'You must have sales in order to submit the order.');

WHEN OTHERS THEN

raise_application_error (-20002,'An error has occurred inserting an order.');

END;

In this example, if an exception is encountered that is not a

DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX

or a

no_sales

, it will be trapped by the WHEN OTHERS clause.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question

: Is there any way to get the ORA error number (and/or description) for the

errors that will fall into OTHERS?

Something like:

WHEN OTHERS THEN

'Error number ' & Err.Number& ' has happen.'

Answer:

Yes, you can use SQLCODE function to retrieve the error number and

SQLERRM function to retrieve the error message.

For example, you could raise the error as follows:

EXCEPTION

WHEN OTHERS THEN

raise_application_error(-20001,'An error was encountered - '||SQLCODE||' -ERROR-

'||SQLERRM);

END;

Or you could log the error to a table as follows:

EXCEPTION

WHEN OTHERS THEN

err_code := SQLCODE;

err_msg := substr(SQLERRM, 1, 200);

INSERT INTO audit_table (error_number, error_message)

VALUES (err_code, err_msg);

END; Download Here Click Here