Error handling in C has always been a pain. Most small projects have a simple return based error handling solution. For example,

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

bool isEven(int i) {
    return i % 2 == 0;
}

int main() {
    int x = 3;
    if (!isEven(x)) {
        printf("[ERROR]: %d is not even!\n", x);
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Our ‘error’ in this case is that our variable x is odd. While this solution works very well for smaller projects, this can create problems down the road. For example,

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdbool.h>

bool isEven(int i) {
    return i % 2 == 0;
}

int *allocEvenInt(int i) {
    int *buf = (int*)malloc(sizeof(int));

    /* passed integer isn't even! */
    if (!isEven(i))
        return NULL;

    /* we failed to allocate! */
    if (buf == NULL)
        return NULL;

    *buf = i;
    return buf;
}

int main() {
    int *buf = allocEvenInt(3);

    if (buf == NULL) {
        printf("[ERROR]: Couldn't create even integer on heap!\n");
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    free(buf);
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Now we have a problem, when allocEvenInt() returns NULL, it could be because the integer wasn’t even or it could be that malloc() failed. This ambiguity isn’t very important for this simple program, but you can see how this could become a problem in the future for larger codebases. So what’s the solution?

longjmp/setjmp magic

Luckily for us, this issue has been solved a long time ago. longjmp/setjmp allows you to reset your stack, jumping back to a pre-error environment. Let’s rewrite our second example using longjmp/setjmp.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <setjmp.h>

enum {
    ERROR_MALLOC = 1,
    ERROR_NOTEVEN
};

jmp_buf errorHandler;

bool isEven(int i) {
    return i % 2 == 0;
}

int *allocEvenInt(int i) {
    int *buf = (int*)malloc(sizeof(int));

    /* passed integer isn't even! */
    if (!isEven(i))
        longjmp(errorHandler, ERROR_NOTEVEN);

    /* we failed to allocate! */
    if (buf == NULL)
        longjmp(errorHandler, ERROR_MALLOC);

    *buf = i;
    return buf;
}

int main() {
    int errCode;
    int *buf;

    if ((errCode = setjmp(errorHandler)) == 0) {
        buf = allocEvenInt(3);
    } else { /* an error was thrown! */
        printf("[ERROR]: ");

        switch (errCode) {
            case ERROR_MALLOC: printf("Malloc failed!\n"); break;
            case ERROR_NOTEVEN: printf("Integer is not even!\n"); break;
            default: break;
        }

        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    free(buf);
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

While this does work, we can definitely do better. Let’s move the printf for error reporting into the function, and add some macro magic.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdbool.h>
#include <setjmp.h>

enum {
    ERROR_MALLOC = 1,
    ERROR_NOTEVEN
};

jmp_buf errorHandler;

#define __STRINGIZE(x) __STRINGIZE2(x)
#define __STRINGIZE2(x) #x
#define __LINE_STRING__ __STRINGIZE(__LINE__)

#define SIMPLE_ERROR(err, ...) do { \
    fprintf(stderr, __FILE__ ":" __LINE_STRING__  " [ERROR]: " __VA_ARGS__); \
    longjmp(errorHandler, err); \
} while(0);

bool isEven(int i) {
    return i % 2 == 0;
}

int *allocEvenInt(int i) {
    int *buf = (int*)malloc(sizeof(int));

    /* passed integer isn't even! */
    if (!isEven(i))
        SIMPLE_ERROR(ERROR_NOTEVEN, "%d is not even!\n", i);

    /* we failed to allocate! */
    if (buf == NULL)
        SIMPLE_ERROR(ERROR_MALLOC, "Malloc failed!\n");

    *buf = i;
    return buf;
}

int main() {
    int errCode;
    int *buf;

    if ((errCode = setjmp(errorHandler)) == 0) {
        buf = allocEvenInt(2);
    } else { /* an error was thrown! */
        /* we can do whatever with the error code here */
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    free(buf);
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Thats a lot better. I took this basic idea and wrote a tiny macro header file for using this, including try/catch blocks.

// helloworld.c
#include <stdio.h>
#include "serror.h"

void try() {
    puts("lo ");
    SIMPLE_ERROR(1, "Wor");
    puts("never called\n");
}

int main() {
    int errCode;
    SIMPLE_TRY(errCode)
        puts("Hel");
        try();
    SIMPLE_CATCH
        puts("ld!");
    SIMPLE_TRYEND

    SIMPLE_ERROR(1, "\n");

    puts("never called\n");
    return 0;
}
Example output.