Ruby Exception Handling: ArgumentError

As our journey through the Ruby Exception Handling series continues, today we'll be taking a closer look at the ArgumentError. According to The 2022 Airbrake Error Data Report, the ArgumentError occurs in around 30% of all projects. ArgumentError is a descendant class of the StandardError superclass, and is typically raised when arguments passed to a method are incorrect, unexpected, or invalid in some way.

In this article, we'll dive deeper into our examination of the ArgumentError class, peering at where it sits within Ruby's Exception class hierarchy and how to handle any ArgumentErrors you may encounter in your own coding adventures. Let the exploration begin!

The Technical Rundown

• All Ruby exceptions are descendants of the Exception class, or a subclass therein.
• StandardError is a direct descendant of the Exception class, and is also a superclass with many descendants of its own.
• ArgumentError is a direct descendant of the StandardError class, and is also a small superclass of its own.

When Should You Use It?

While ArgumentError is intended to appear in the limited circumstance for when passed arguments to a method are incorrect in some fashion, the sheer number of specific instances in which this can occur is quite massive. Whether it be passing too many arguments to a method that expects fewer total, passing an incorrect argument data type, or even passing the correct data type but with an invalid value, ArgumentError covers the vast majority of these situations.

Therefore, to use it properly, it's simplest to just take a look at a few basic examples so you can extrapolate on this knowledge for your own exception handling needs.

In this example below, we're creating a new array called data and giving it the series of values from 1 to 10. Next, we want to grab a random sample of these array values and output them, so we're using the .sample() method on our array, but we've accidentally added two arguments specifying how many elements from the array we want to select:

def print_exception(exception, explicit)

    puts "[#{explicit ? 'EXPLICIT' : 'INEXPLICIT'}] #{exception.class}: #{exception.message}"

    puts exception.backtrace.join("\n")

end

begin
# Create array of numbers 1 through 10
data = *(1...10)
# Try to grab a random sample from array, with too many arguments
puts data.sample(3, 5)
rescue ArgumentError => e
print_exception(e, true)
rescue => e
print_exception(e, false)
end

Ruby doesn't care for this, since the .sample() method only expects one numeric argument, and thus we produce our expected ArgumentError informing us of this blunder:

[EXPLICIT] ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (2 for 1)

code.rb:11:in `sample'

code.rb:11:in `<main>'

Along the same vein, we can also raise an ArgumentError by passing an invalid argument to .sample(), such as a negative number in this case.

def print_exception(exception, explicit)

    puts "[#{explicit ? 'EXPLICIT' : 'INEXPLICIT'}] #{exception.class}: #{exception.message}"

    puts exception.backtrace.join("\n")

end

begin
# Create array of numbers 1 through 10
data = *(1...10)
# Try to grab a negative number of random elements
puts data.sample(-5)
rescue ArgumentError => e
print_exception(e, true)
rescue => e
print_exception(e, false)
end

Since collecting a negative number of elements makes no sense, Ruby throws another ArgumentError and informs us of our faux pas:

[EXPLICIT] ArgumentError: negative sample number

code.rb:28:in `sample'

code.rb:28:in `<main>'

As with any exception class that extends from StandardError, it's important to note that we can also catch this error even if we neglect to explicitly rescue the ArgumentError class, and instead fall back to the default rescuing of StandardError:

def print_exception(exception, explicit)

    puts "[#{explicit ? 'EXPLICIT' : 'INEXPLICIT'}] #{exception.class}: #{exception.message}"

    puts exception.backtrace.join("\n")

end

begin
# Create array of numbers 1 through 10
data = *(1...10)
# Try to grab a negative number of random elements
puts data.sample(-5)
rescue => e # Rescuing the default `StandardError` exception class
print_exception(e, false)
end

Sure enough, while we didn't explicitly rescue our ArgumentError class, the default StandardError did the rescuing for us, and then drilled down to the matching ArgumentError that applied, just as before:

[INEXPLICIT] ArgumentError: negative sample number

code.rb:45:in `sample'

code.rb:45:in `<main>'

To get the most out of your own applications and to fully manage any and all Ruby Exceptions, check out the Airbrake Ruby exception handling tool, offering real-time alerts and instantaneous insight into what went wrong with your Ruby code, including integrated support for a variety of popular Ruby gems and frameworks.

Note: We published this post in December 2016 and recently updated it in March 2022.