Use of try, except, and finally

Syntax#

1. Try-except: try [statements] except [[[on E:ExceptionType do statement]] [else statement] | [statements] end;

   Try-finally: try [statements] finally [statements] end;

Simple try..finally example to avoid memory leaks

Use try-finally to avoid leaking resources (such as memory) in case an exception occurs during execution.

The procedure below saves a string in a file and prevents the TStringList from leaking.

procedure SaveStringToFile(const aFilename: TFilename; const aString: string);
var
  SL: TStringList;
begin
  SL := TStringList.Create; // call outside the try 
  try
    SL.Text := aString;
    SL.SaveToFile(aFilename);
  finally
    SL.Free // will be called no matter what happens above
  end;
end;

Regardless of whether an exception occurs while saving the file, SL will be freed. Any exception will go to the caller.

Exception-safe return of a new object

When a function returns an object (as opposed to using one that’s passed in by the caller), be careful an exception doesn’t cause the object to leak.

function MakeStrings: TStrings;
begin
  // Create a new object before entering the try-block.
  Result := TStringList.Create;
  try
    // Execute code that uses the new object and prepares it for the caller.
    Result.Add('One');
    MightThrow;
  except
    // If execution reaches this point, then an exception has occurred. We cannot
    // know how to handle all possible exceptions, so we merely clean up the resources
    // allocated by this function and then re-raise the exception so the caller can
    // choose what to do with it.
    Result.Free;
    raise;
  end;
  // If execution reaches this point, then no exception has occurred, so the
  // function will return Result normally.
end;

Naive programmers might attempt to catch all exception types and return nil from such a function, but that’s just a special case of the general discouraged practice of catching all exception types without handling them.

Try-finally nested inside try-except

A try-finally block may be nested inside a try-except block.

try
  AcquireResources;
  try
    UseResource;
  finally
    ReleaseResource;
  end;
except
  on E: EResourceUsageError do begin
    HandleResourceErrors;
  end;
end;

If an exception occurs inside UseResource, then execution will jump to ReleaseResource. If the exception is an EResourceUsageError, then execution will jump to the exception handler and call HandleResourceErrors. Exceptions of any other type will skip the exception handler above and bubble up to the next try-except block up the call stack.

Exceptions in AcquireResource or ReleaseResource will cause execution to go to the exception handler, skipping the finally block, either because the corresponding try block has not been entered yet or because the finally block has already been entered.

Try-except nested inside try-finally

A try-except block may be nested inside a try-finally block.

AcquireResource;
try
  UseResource1;
  try
    UseResource2;
  except
    on E: EResourceUsageError do begin
      HandleResourceErrors;
    end;
  end;
  UseResource3;
finally
  ReleaseResource;
end;

If an EResourceUsageError occurs in UseResource2, then execution will jump to the exception handler and call HandleResourceError. The exception will be considered handled, so execution will continue to UseResource3, and then ReleaseResource.

If an exception of any other type occurs in UseResource2, then the exception handler show here will not apply, so execution will jump over the UseResource3 call and go directly to the finally block, where ReleaseResource will be called. After that, execution will jump to the next applicable exception handler as the exception bubbles up the call stack.

If an exception occurs in any other call in the above example, then HandleResourceErrors will not be called. This is because none of the other calls occur inside the try block corresponding to that exception handler.

Try-finally with 2 or more objects

Object1 := nil;
Object2 := nil;
try
  Object1 := TMyObject.Create;
  Object2 := TMyObject.Create;
finally
  Object1.Free;
  Object2.Free;
end;

If you do not initialize the objects with nil outside the try-finally block, if one of them fails to be created an AV will occur on the finally block, because the object won’t be nil (as it wasn’t initialized) and will cause an exception.

The Free method checks if the object is nil, so initializing both objects with nil avoids errors when freeing them if they weren’t created.