How to Write Your First tryCatch() Function in R

You can use a tryCatch() function in R to return the value of some expression or produce a custom message if a warning or error is encountered.

This function uses the following basic syntax:

my_function function(x, y){
    tryCatch(
        #try to do this
        {
        #some expression
        },
        #if an error occurs, tell me the error
        error=function(e) {
            message('An Error Occurred')
            print(e)
        },
        #if a warning occurs, tell me the warning
        warning=function(w) {
            message('A Warning Occurred')
            print(w)
            return(NA)
        }
    )
}

The following examples shows how to use a tryCatch() function in practice.

Example: Create a tryCatch() Function in R

Suppose we create the following tryCatch() function that attempts to take the log of one value and then divide by a second value.

If an error occurs, we will produce the message “An Error Occurred” and then print the error in R.

If a warning occurs, we will produce the message “A Warning Occurred”, print the warning in R, and then return an NA value.

If neither an error or warning occurs, we’ll simply return the result of the function.

log_and_divide function(x, y){
    tryCatch(
        {
        result = log(x) / y
        return(result)
        },
        error=function(e) {
            message('An Error Occurred')
            print(e)
        },
        warning=function(w) {
            message('A Warning Occurred')
            print(w)
            return(NA)
        }
    )
}

Let’s run this function in different scenarios.

Scenario 1: No error or warning occurs.

The following code shows how to use the function in a scenario where no error or warning occurs.

#run function
log_and_divide(10, 2)

[1] 1.151293

Since no error or warning occurs, the function simply returns the result of the expression, which turns out to be 1.151293.

Scenario 2: An error occurs.

The following code shows how to use the function in a scenario where an error occurs:

#run function
log_and_divide(10)

An Error Occurred

Since we only provided one argument to the function, we receive the message that “An Error Occurred” and we also see the exact error produced by R.

Scenario 3: A warning occurs.

The following code shows how to use the function in a scenario where a warning occurs:

#run function
log_and_divide(-10, 2)

A Warning Occurred

[1] NA

Since we provided a negative value for the first argument, R is unable to calculate the log of a negative value so we receive the message that “A Warning Occurred“, we see the exact warning produced by R, and the function returns NA as a result.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in R:

How to Create a Nested For Loop in R
How to Append Values to a Vector Using a Loop in R
How to Return Value from Function in R