Oracle: what is the situation to use RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR?

Question

We can use RAISE to fire an exception. What particular situations do we need to use RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR?

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are two uses for RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR. The first is to replace generic Oracle exception messages with our own, more meaningful messages. The second is to create exception conditions of our own, when Oracle would not throw them.

The following procedure illustrates both usages. It enforces a business rule that new employees cannot be hired in the future. It also overrides two Oracle exceptions. One is DUP_VAL_ON_INDEX, which is thrown by a unique key on EMP(ENAME). The other is a a user-defined exception thrown when the foreign key between EMP(MGR) and EMP(EMPNO) is violated (because a manager must be an existing employee).

create or replace procedure new_emp
    ( p_name in emp.ename%type
      , p_sal in emp.sal%type
      , p_job in emp.job%type
      , p_dept in emp.deptno%type
      , p_mgr in emp.mgr%type 
      , p_hired in emp.hiredate%type := sysdate )
is
    invalid_manager exception;
    PRAGMA EXCEPTION_INIT(invalid_manager, -2291);
    dummy varchar2(1);
begin
    -- check hiredate is valid
    if trunc(p_hired) > trunc(sysdate) 
    then
        raise_application_error
            (-20000
             , 'NEW_EMP::hiredate cannot be in the future'); 
    end if;

    insert into emp
        ( ename
          , sal
          , job
          , deptno
          , mgr 
          , hiredate )
    values      
        ( p_name
          , p_sal
          , p_job
          , p_dept
          , p_mgr 
          , trunc(p_hired) );
exception
    when dup_val_on_index then
        raise_application_error
            (-20001
             , 'NEW_EMP::employee called '||p_name||' already exists'
             , true); 
    when invalid_manager then
        raise_application_error
            (-20002
             , 'NEW_EMP::'||p_mgr ||' is not a valid manager'); 

end;
/

How it looks:

SQL> exec new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 7782, sysdate+1)
BEGIN new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 7782, sysdate+1); END;

*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-20000: NEW_EMP::hiredate cannot be in the future
ORA-06512: at "APC.NEW_EMP", line 16
ORA-06512: at line 1

SQL>
SQL> exec new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 8888, sysdate)
BEGIN new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 8888, sysdate); END;

*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-20002: NEW_EMP::8888 is not a valid manager
ORA-06512: at "APC.NEW_EMP", line 42
ORA-06512: at line 1


SQL>
SQL> exec new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 7782, sysdate)

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

SQL>
SQL> exec new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 7782, sysdate)
BEGIN new_emp ('DUGGAN', 2500, 'SALES', 10, 7782, sysdate); END;

*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-20001: NEW_EMP::employee called DUGGAN already exists
ORA-06512: at "APC.NEW_EMP", line 37
ORA-00001: unique constraint (APC.EMP_UK) violated
ORA-06512: at line 1

Note the different output from the two calls to RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR in the EXCEPTIONS block. Setting the optional third argument to TRUE means RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR includes the triggering exception in the stack, which can be useful for diagnosis.

There is more useful information in the PL/SQL User's Guide.