Chapter 7. Error Handling and Built-In Exceptions

Chapter Objectives

In this Chapter, you will learn about:

Handling Errors

Built-In Exceptions

In Chapter 2, you encountered two types of errors that can be found in a program: compilation errors and runtime errors. You will recall that there is a special section in a PL/SQL block that handles runtime errors. This section is called the exception-handling section, and in it, runtime errors are referred to as exceptions. The exception-handling section allows programmers to specify what actions should be taken when a specific exception occurs.

In PL/SQL, there are two types of exceptions: built-in exceptions and user-defined exceptions. In this chapter, you will learn how you can handle certain kinds of runtime errors with the help of built-in exceptions. User -defined exceptions are discussed in Chapters 10 and 11.