Oracle/PLSQL: WHEN OTHERS Clause

What is a 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 happened.'

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;