Is there any good best practices for exception handling in rails?

Question

I'm currently on Rails 2.3.5 and I'm trying rescue_from exceptions as neat as possible in my Application.

My ApplicationController rescues look like this now:

  rescue_from Acl9::AccessDenied, :with => :access_denied
  rescue_from Exceptions::NotPartOfGroup, :with => :not_part_of_group
  rescue_from Exceptions::SomethingWentWrong, :with => :something_went_wrong
  rescue_from ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, :with => :something_went_wrong
  rescue_from ActionController::UnknownAction, :with => :something_went_wrong
  rescue_from ActionController::UnknownController, :with => :something_went_wrong
  rescue_from ActionController::RoutingError, :with => :something_went_wrong

I also want to be able to catch any exceptions no listed above. Is there recommended way I should be writing my rescues?

Thanks

Answer 1

You can catch more generic exceptions, but you have to put them at top, as expained here

For example, to catch all other exceptions, you can do

rescue_from Exception, :with => :error_generic
rescue_from ... #all others rescues

But if you do that, make sure you at least log the exception, or you will never know, what is wrong with your app:

def error_generic(exception)
  log_error(exception)
  #your rescue code
end

also, you can define multiple exception classes in row for one handler:

  rescue_from Exceptions::SomethingWentWrong, ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, ... , :with => :something_went_wrong

Answer 2

maybe exception notifier plugin can help you some way

Answer 3

You can define a hook method in ApplicationController like this:

def rescue_action_in_public(exception)   
  case exception

  when ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound, ActionController::UnknownAction, ActionController::RoutingError
    redirect_to errors_path(404), :status=>301
  else
    redirect_to errors_path(500)
  end
end