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Explicit Nonlocal Exits: catch and throw

Most control constructs affect only the flow of control within the construct itself. The function throw is the exception to this rule of normal program execution: it performs a nonlocal exit on request. (There are other exceptions, but they are for error handling only.) throw is used inside a catch, and jumps back to that catch. For example:

(defun foo-outer ()
  (catch 'foo
    (foo-inner)))

(defun foo-inner ()
  …
  (if x
      (throw 'foo t))
  …)

The throw form, if executed, transfers control straight back to the corresponding catch, which returns immediately. The code following the throw is not executed. The second argument of throw is used as the return value of the catch.

The function throw finds the matching catch based on the first argument: it searches for a catch whose first argument is eq to the one specified in the throw. If there is more than one applicable catch, the innermost one takes precedence. Thus, in the above example, the throw specifies foo, and the catch in foo-outer specifies the same symbol, so that catch is the applicable one (assuming there is no other matching catch in between).

Executing throw exits all Lisp constructs up to the matching catch, including function calls. When binding constructs such as let or function calls are exited in this way, the bindings are unbound, just as they are when these constructs exit normally (see Local Variables). Likewise, throw restores the buffer and position saved by save-excursion (see Excursions), and the narrowing status saved by save-restriction. It also runs any cleanups established with the unwind-protect special form when it exits that form (see Cleanups).

The throw need not appear lexically within the catch that it jumps to. It can equally well be called from another function called within the catch. As long as the throw takes place chronologically after entry to the catch, and chronologically before exit from it, it has access to that catch. This is why throw can be used in commands such as exit-recursive-edit that throw back to the editor command loop (see Recursive Editing).

Common Lisp note: Most other versions of Lisp, including Common Lisp, have several ways of transferring control nonsequentially: return, return-from, and go, for example. Emacs Lisp has only throw. The cl-lib library provides versions of some of these. See Blocks and Exits in Common Lisp Extensions.

Special Form: catch tag body…

catch establishes a return point for the throw function. The return point is distinguished from other such return points by tag, which may be any Lisp object except nil. The argument tag is evaluated normally before the return point is established.

With the return point in effect, catch evaluates the forms of the body in textual order. If the forms execute normally (without error or nonlocal exit) the value of the last body form is returned from the catch.

If a throw is executed during the execution of body, specifying the same value tag, the catch form exits immediately; the value it returns is whatever was specified as the second argument of throw.

Function: throw tag value

The purpose of throw is to return from a return point previously established with catch. The argument tag is used to choose among the various existing return points; it must be eq to the value specified in the catch. If multiple return points match tag, the innermost one is used.

The argument value is used as the value to return from that catch.

If no return point is in effect with tag tag, then a no-catch error is signaled with data (tag value).