Simplest way to throw an error/exception with a custom message in Swift 2?

Question

I want to do something in Swift 2 that I\'m used to doing in multiple other languages: throw a runtime exception with a custom message. For example (in Java):

Answer 1

Check this cool version out. The idea is to implement both String and ErrorType protocols and use the error's rawValue.

enum UserValidationError: String, Error {
  case noFirstNameProvided = "Please insert your first name."
  case noLastNameProvided = "Please insert your last name."
  case noAgeProvided = "Please insert your age."
  case noEmailProvided = "Please insert your email."
}

Usage:

do {
  try User.define(firstName,
                  lastName: lastName,
                  age: age,
                  email: email,
                  gender: gender,
                  location: location,
                  phone: phone)
}
catch let error as User.UserValidationError {
  print(error.rawValue)
  return
}

Answer 2

Simplest solution without extra extensions, enums, classes and etc.:

NSException(name:NSExceptionName(rawValue: "name"), reason:"reason", userInfo:nil).raise()

Answer 3

The simplest way is to make String conform to Error:

extension String: Error {}

Then you can just throw a string:

throw "Some Error"

To make the string itself be the localizedString of the error you can instead extend LocalizedError:

extension String: LocalizedError {
    public var errorDescription: String? { return self }
}

Answer 4

@nick-keets's solution is most elegant, but it did break down for me in test target with the following compile time error:

Redundant conformance of 'String' to protocol 'Error'

Here's another approach:

struct RuntimeError: Error {
    let message: String

    init(_ message: String) {
        self.message = message
    }

    public var localizedDescription: String {
        return message
    }
}

And to use:

throw RuntimeError("Error message.")