Failures

Recoverable failure is part of a Khora function type. raises declares the channel, raise creates a failure, postfix ! propagates one, catch handles typed cases, and attempt converts the channel into Result data.

The four pieces, at a glance:

raise E                    create a typed failure
foo()!                     allow E to propagate out of the current function
foo()! catch { ... }       handle E here
attempt(fn () => foo()!)   turn E into a Result<A, E> value

Declare a failure type

Failure types are ordinary ADTs:

pub type UserError =
  | NotFound(id: Id)
  | Unavailable(reason: String);

raises on a function

fn load_user(id: Id) -> User
  raises UserError
{
  // ...
}

Several failure types use +:

fn handle_request() -> Response
  raises UserError + HttpError
{
  // ...
}

raises on a function type

Id -> User raises UserError

Open generic row:

A -> B raises 'er

Explicit raise

raise UserError::NotFound(id)

raise is an expression of type Never: the current path does not produce the surrounding normal result.

Example:

fn require_user(found: Option<User>, id: Id) -> User
  raises UserError
{
  match found {
    Option::Some(user) => user,
    Option::None => raise UserError::NotFound(id),
  }
}

Propagate with postfix !

let user = load_user(id)!;

The call’s normal value remains User; its failure is allowed to leave the current computation. The enclosing function must either permit that failure in its own raises row or handle it.

fn load_profile(id: Id) -> Profile
  raises UserError
{
  let user = load_user(id)!;
  Profile::from_user(user)
}

! is a call-site marker

Prefix and postfix ! have different meanings:

!enabled      // boolean negation
load_user(id)! // failure propagation

Position disambiguates them.

Handle failures with catch

let user = load_user(id)! catch {
  UserError::NotFound(_) => User::guest(),
  UserError::Unavailable(reason) => User::offline(reason),
};

A catch arm uses ordinary pattern syntax over the failure value. The success path keeps the value produced by the inner expression; a matching arm produces the replacement value.

A bare name binds the whole failure, the way it does in a match:

let user = load_user(id)! catch { trouble => User::unavailable(Show::show(trouble)) };

That arm handles everything the operand can raise, so it needs no companion. It is the form to reach for when the answer does not depend on which variant arrived – turning a nine-variant error into one Refused is one arm this way and nine identical ones by constructor.

The binding is typed by the operand’s failure row, so it works when that row names one type. Where an operand raises two, there is no single type to give the name, and the compiler says so:

this `catch` arm binds the failure, but the operand can raise more than one
type (DbError, ModelError), so there is no single type to give the binding.
Name a constructor, or use `_` to handle them all without looking

_ remains the arm for “handle everything and do not look at it”: it binds nothing, and the failure is released without being read.

Exhaustiveness by failure type

Handling a named failure type commits to handling all of that type’s variants:

operation()! catch {
  UserError::NotFound(id) => recover_missing(id),
  UserError::Unavailable(reason) => recover_unavailable(reason),
}

When those arms exhaust UserError, that type is subtracted from the failures that can leave the catch expression. A wildcard does not mean “all possible failures in an open row.”

Translate failure types

Catch one type and raise another:

fn load_for_api(id: Id) -> User
  raises ApiError
{
  load_user(id)! catch {
    UserError::NotFound(_) =>
      raise ApiError::NotFound,

    UserError::Unavailable(reason) =>
      raise ApiError::ServiceUnavailable(reason),
  }
}

UserError no longer escapes load_for_api; callers see ApiError.

A layer should usually not expose the failures of the layer beneath it, which makes this the ordinary boundary shape:

infrastructure/domain failure
          |  catch + raise
application/API failure
          |  catch
response or other boundary value

Handle only part of a multi-type row

fn analyze(id: Id) -> Report
  raises DbError
{
  analyze_model(id)! catch {
    ModelError::RateLimited(_) => Report::deferred(id),
    ModelError::ContextLengthExceeded(_) => Report::unavailable(id),
    ModelError::InferenceEngineFailure(_) => Report::unavailable(id),
    ModelError::SchemaExtractionError(_) => Report::unavailable(id),
  }
}

If the inner expression raises DbError + ModelError, exhaustively catching ModelError leaves DbError untouched.

Convert failures to a boundary value

fn handle(id: Id) -> Response {
  let user = load_for_api(id)! catch {
    ApiError::NotFound =>
      return Response::text(404, "not found"),

    ApiError::ServiceUnavailable(reason) =>
      return Response::text(503, reason),
  };

  Response::json(200, user)
}

The function has no raises ApiError because the boundary consumes every ApiError into an ordinary Response.

attempt

attempt converts a computation’s failure channel into Result<A, E>:

let result = attempt(fn () => load_user(id)!);

Conceptual type:

fn attempt<A, E, 'ef>(body: () -> A with 'ef raises E) -> Result<A, E>
  with 'ef;

The returned Result is ordinary data:

match result {
  Result::Ok(user) => use_user(user),
  Result::Err(error) => log_error(error),
}

One error type

E is a type, not a row, so attempt handles a body that raises exactly one thing. A body raising two has nowhere to go through it:

error: this argument: `Denied` is not accounted for here. This takes one error
       type and the body raises `IoError` and `Denied`; there is no type that
       means "either of these", so handle them with `catch` instead

This is a real limit rather than an oversight. Result<A, E> needs one E, and Khora has no anonymous sum type to name “either of these two” — so there is nothing for a two-type row to collapse into. Naming the union would mean declaring a type for every pair of failures a program happens to combine.

Use catch for a wider row. It matches per type and never has to name the union:

let answer = fetch(url)! catch {
  IoError::NotFound(_path) => fallback(),
  Denied(_path) => refuse(),
};

Two marks, doing different jobs

A fallible function can be mapped directly, because a function type carries its own capability and failure rows and the combinator carries the caller’s:

let users = ids |> List::map(fn id => load_user(id)!)!;

The inner ! is load_user failing. The outer one is List::map passing that failure on, which it can do only because its own signature ends raises 'er. Leaving the outer one off is an error naming both halves:

error: `List::map` can leave this function, so the call needs `!`: write `List::map(..)!`
error: `List::map` needs `Bad`, which this function does not raise

Every combinator that takes a function is written that way — fold, filter, find, any, all, partition, flat_map, and their counterparts on Option and Result — so a fallible step never means leaving the chain to write the walk by hand. Mapping a pure function needs neither mark: an empty row is what a row variable takes when nothing fills it.

Collect per-item failures

Propagating from inside List::map stops at the first failure:

items |> List::map(fn item => process(item)!)!

Convert each invocation with attempt to run all items and collect both successes and failures:

let results = items
  |> List::map(fn item =>
    attempt(fn () => process(item)!)
  );

The result has the shape:

List<Result<Output, ProcessError>>

When you want every reason, not the first

raises stops at the first failure, which is right when the next step needs the last one’s value. Validation is the other shape: the fields of a form, the keys of a configuration, the columns of a row do not depend on each other, and reporting them one restart at a time makes somebody run the program five times to be told five things it knew the first time.

Validated<A, E> from std::core is that shape. map2 runs its combiner only when both sides succeeded, and otherwise carries every error from both:

let settings = Validated::map2(
  integer("PORT"),
  string("HOST"),
  fn (port, host) => { port: port, host: host },
);

and_then is the fail-fast one, for a second step written in terms of the first’s value — there is no second answer to collect when there is no first value to write it against.

to_result collapses the whole thing into a Result<A, List<E>> when it is time to rejoin a raises chain. It keeps the list rather than the first error, because throwing the rest away at the boundary would undo the collecting.

Load application configuration and Schemas are both built on it.

Result::map_err

Once a failure is already data, use normal Result operations rather than catch:

let mapped = result
  |> Result::map_err(fn error =>
    ApiError::from_user_error(error)
  );

This maps Result<A, E> to Result<A, F>. By contrast, catch { ... raise F ... } maps the live failure channel from E to F.

A failure that reaches main

main is not called by anything, so there is nowhere to hand a failure that gets that far. A program whose entry point raises and does not handle it ends with exit status 1, and prints the error type’s name to standard error:

khora: `IoError` reached the entry point and nothing handled it
note: `main` has nowhere to hand an error, so the program ends here with status 1. Catch it in `main`, or return a `Result`

The type is named, not the value. Handle it where the program can say something better:

pub fn main() -> Int {
  with { reads: FsRead::real() } {
    match attempt(fn () => read_text(path)!) {
      Result::Ok(text) => { print(text); 0 },
      Result::Err(IoError::NotFound(where)) => { print("no such file: ${where}"); 1 },
      Result::Err(other) => { print("could not read it"); 1 },
    }
  }
}

A cancellation that reaches the entry point is a different outcome and exits 130 — 128 plus SIGINT, which is what a shell already means by “interrupted”. It prints nothing, because stopping a program with a keystroke is not a failure to report.

main installs capabilities rather than requiring them

For the same reason, main may not carry a with { .. } requirement: nothing calls it, so nothing could supply one. Install them in the body instead — with { reads: FsRead::real() } { .. }, as above. A with clause on main is refused at compile time.

Failure is part of the API

A raises row is documentation the compiler checks. It answers, in the signature, a question many languages leave to prose: what normal failure conditions must a caller be prepared for?

Keep the failure types meaningful at each boundary. A low-level package can expose precise operational failures, an application service can translate those into domain failures, and the outermost boundary can consume them into responses, exit codes or other protocol values.

with and raises are the two halves of an effectful signature and are independent: with says what authority a computation needs, Capabilities covers it, and raises says how its normal result may fail.

Traps are separate

Arithmetic overflow, bounds failures, and other violated invariants are traps, not ordinary raises values. See Traps.