User Guide

64 Chapter 2: ColdFusion Tags
cfcatch
Description
Used inside a cftry tag. Together, they catch and process exceptions in ColdFusion pages.
Exceptions are events that disrupt the normal flow of instructions in a ColdFusion page, such as
failed database operations, missing include files, and developer-specified events.
Category
Exception handling tags
Syntax
<cfcatch type = "exceptiontype">
Exception processing code here
</cfcatch>
See also
cftry, cferror, cfrethrow, cfthrow,
Chapter 14, “Handling Errors,” in Developing
ColdFusion MX Applications
History
ColdFusion MX:
• Changed SQLSTATE value behavior: the SQLSTATE return value in a cfcatch tag depends
on the database driver type:
■ Type 1 (JDBC-ODBC bridge): the value is the same as in ColdFusion 5
■ Type 4 (100% Java, no native methods): the value might be different
If your application depends on SQLSTATE values for flow control, the application might
produce unexpected behavior with ColdFusion MX.
• Changed the behavior of this tag when type="any": it is not necessary, when you include a
cfcatch tag with type="any", to do so in the last cfcatch tag in the block, to ensure that all
other tests are executed before it. ColdFusion finds the best-match
cfcatch block.
• Changed the behavior of the cfscript tag: it includes try and catch statements that are
equivalent to the
cftry and cfcatch tags.
• Changed object modification: you cannot modify the object returned by cfcatch.
• Changed thrown exceptions: the cfcollection, cfindex, and cfsearch tags can throw the
SEARCHENGINE exception. In earlier releases, an error in processing these tags threw only
an UNKNOWN exception.