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xsl:catch

In conjunction with xsl:try, the xsl:catch instruction allows recovery from dynamic errors.

Available in XSLT 3.0. From Saxon 9.8, available in all editions. Implemented in Saxon-PE and Saxon-EE since Saxon 9.6.

  • Content: sequence-constructor
  • Permitted parent elements: xsl:try

Attributes

errors?
tokens
Indicates which error codes are caught. If absent, or if set to *, all errors are caught. The value can be a whitespace-separated list of QNames; the wildcards *:local or prefix:* can also be used.
select?
expression
The effect of the element may be defined either by a select attribute, or by an enclosed sequence constructor.

Details

It is possible to have more than one xsl:catch within an xsl:try; the first one that matches the error is used.

Within the xsl:catch, a number of variables are available in the namespace http://www.w3.org/2005/xqt-errors:

  • err:code - the error code as a QName
  • err:description - the error description (error message)
  • err:value - the error object (if available)
  • err:module - the URI of the stylesheet module in which the error occurred
  • err:line-number - the line-number of the source stylesheet where the error occurred
  • err:column-number - for Saxon this will generally be unknown (-1)

The error can be re-thrown by using the error() function.

See also

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