Zoho Deluge: Nested Catch Statements

: Category: Zoho; 04 February 2025; Hits: 17288

What?
A really quick article on demonstrating a nested try...catch()... statement working in Zoho CRM.

Why?
To prove a point to ChatGPT who said this was not possible... and to deal with a scenario which exists for a client of mine.

The use-case for my Cx is that they need documents converted from HTML to PDF — as in we send it a bit of code in HTML and we want a PDF file returned. I have severaly instances of an API which accepts HTML and returns a PDF file. Nothing complex but issues with one of the servers being down, or inaccessible due to certificate expirys, means that the Cx business halts. In order to add a bit of clustering, we have added a bit of code for it to try one server first, if there is any kind of an error with that server, it tries a second server... We now want to add a third server to try if the first 2 fail for whatever reason.

How?
Admittedly, perhaps this maybe wasn't possible but as of February 2024; I have been able to test and implement this.

Consider the following code:

copy raw

try
	{
		v_Test1 = "Foo";
		info v_Test1.toLong();
	}
	catch(e)
	{
		info "Couldn't convert 'Foo' to an integer";
		try
		{
			v_Test2 = "Bar";
			info v_Test2.toLong();
			
		}
		catch(e)
		{
			info "Couldn't convert 'Bar' to an integer";
			
		}
	}

try
{
v_Test1 = "Foo";
info v_Test1.toLong();
}
catch(e)
{
info "Couldn't convert 'Foo' to an integer";
try
{
v_Test2 = "Bar";
info v_Test2.toLong();
}
catch(e)
{
info "Couldn't convert 'Bar' to an integer";
}
}

Pushing the product beyond it's design
Note that before anyone says I'm only try catching a doomed conversion from string to integer; I've applied this to an actual invokeURL command rather than just an info output.

copy raw

try
	{
		r_GeneratePDF = invokeurl
		[
			url: v_EndpointServer1
			type: POST
			parameters: m_Html
			headers: m_Headers1
		];
	}
	catch(e)
	{
		try
		{
			r_GeneratePDF = invokeurl
			[
				url: v_EndpointServer2
				type: POST
				parameters: m_Html
				headers: m_Headers2
			];
		}
		catch(e)
		{
			r_GeneratePDF = invokeurl
			[
				url: v_EndpointServer3
				type: POST
				parameters: m_Html
				headers: m_Headers3
			];
		}
	}

try
{
r_GeneratePDF = invokeUrl
[
url: v_EndpointServer1
type: POST
parameters: m_Html
headers: m_Headers1
];
}
catch(e)
{
try
{
r_GeneratePDF = invokeUrl
[
url: v_EndpointServer2
type: POST
parameters: m_Html
headers: m_Headers2
];
}
catch(e)
{
r_GeneratePDF = invokeUrl
[
url: v_EndpointServer3
type: POST
parameters: m_Html
headers: m_Headers3
];
}
}

This feels like really bad practice

copy raw

try
	{
		v_Test1 = "Foo";
		info v_Test1.toLong();
	}
	catch(e)
	{
		info "Couldn't convert 'Foo' to an integer";
		try
		{
			v_Test2 = "Bar";
			info v_Test2.toLong();
		}
		catch(e)
		{
			info "Couldn't convert 'Bar' to an integer";
			try
			{
				v_Test3 = "Everyday I'm Nesting...";
				info v_Test3.toLong();

			}
			catch(e)
			{
				info "Couldn't convert 'Everyday...' to an integer";
				try
				{
					v_Test4 = "Another for the road...";
					info v_Test4.toLong();

				}
				catch(e)
				{
					info "Couldn't convert 'Another...' to an integer";

				}
			}
		}
	}

// yields:
// "Couldn't convert 'Foo' to an integer" 
// "Couldn't convert 'Bar' to an integer" 
// "Couldn't convert 'Everyday...' to an integer" 
// "Couldn't convert 'Another...' to an integer"