react-error-boundary

What is react-error-boundary?

The react-error-boundary package provides a simple and reusable wrapper component that catches JavaScript errors in their child component tree, logs those errors, and displays a fallback UI instead of the component tree that crashed. It is designed to handle errors that occur during rendering, in lifecycle methods, and in constructors of the whole tree below them.

What are react-error-boundary's main functionalities?

Error Boundary Wrapper

This feature allows you to wrap your components with an ErrorBoundary component. You can specify a FallbackComponent to be displayed when an error is caught, and an onError handler to log or report errors.

{"<ErrorBoundary FallbackComponent={MyFallbackComponent} onError={myErrorHandler}>
  <MyWidget />
</ErrorBoundary>"}

useErrorHandler Hook

The useErrorHandler hook can be used within functional components to handle errors. When an error is caught, it can be passed to the handleError function provided by the hook, which will then trigger the nearest error boundary.

{"const handleError = useErrorHandler();
try {
  // Some operation that might fail
} catch (error) {
  handleError(error);
}"}

Other packages similar to react-error-boundary

react-error-overlay

This package provides an overlay for displaying runtime errors in React applications. It is similar to react-error-boundary in that it helps developers handle errors, but it focuses on providing a development-time overlay that displays errors rather than a production-ready error boundary component.

react-error-guard

React-error-guard is a package that provides error boundary functionality with a focus on simplicity and minimalism. It is similar to react-error-boundary but may have fewer features and a simpler API, which could be beneficial for smaller projects or for developers who prefer a more straightforward approach.

README

react-error-boundary

Reusable React error boundary component. Supports all React renderers (including React DOM and React Native).

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Getting started

# npm
npm install react-error-boundary

# yarn
yarn add react-error-boundary

API

ErrorBoundary component

Wrap an ErrorBoundary around other React components to "catch" errors and render a fallback UI. The component supports several ways to render a fallback (shown below).

Note ErrorBoundary is a client component. You can only pass props to it that are serializeable or use it in files that have a "use client"; directive.

ErrorBoundary with fallback prop

The simplest way to render a default "something went wrong" type error message.

"use client";

import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

<ErrorBoundary fallback={<div>Something went wrong</div>}>
  <ExampleApplication />
</ErrorBoundary>

ErrorBoundary with fallbackRender prop

"Render prop" function responsible for returning a fallback UI based on a thrown value.

"use client";

import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

function fallbackRender({ error, resetErrorBoundary }) {
  // Call resetErrorBoundary() to reset the error boundary and retry the render.

  return (
    <div role="alert">
      <p>Something went wrong:</p>
      <pre style={{ color: "red" }}>{error.message}</pre>
    </div>
  );
}

<ErrorBoundary
  fallbackRender={fallbackRender}
  onReset={(details) => {
    // Reset the state of your app so the error doesn't happen again
  }}
>
  <ExampleApplication />
</ErrorBoundary>;

ErrorBoundary with FallbackComponent prop

React component responsible for returning a fallback UI based on a thrown value.

"use client";

import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

function Fallback({ error, resetErrorBoundary }) {
  // Call resetErrorBoundary() to reset the error boundary and retry the render.

  return (
    <div role="alert">
      <p>Something went wrong:</p>
      <pre style={{ color: "red" }}>{error.message}</pre>
    </div>
  );
}

<ErrorBoundary
  FallbackComponent={Fallback}
  onReset={(details) => {
    // Reset the state of your app so the error doesn't happen again
  }}
>
  <ExampleApplication />
</ErrorBoundary>;

Logging errors with onError

"use client";

import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

const logError = (error: Error, info: { componentStack: string }) => {
  // Do something with the error, e.g. log to an external API
};

const ui = (
  <ErrorBoundary FallbackComponent={ErrorFallback} onError={logError}>
    <ExampleApplication />
  </ErrorBoundary>
);

useErrorBoundary hook

Convenience hook for imperatively showing or dismissing error boundaries.

Show the nearest error boundary from an event handler

React only handles errors thrown during render or during component lifecycle methods (e.g. effects and did-mount/did-update). Errors thrown in event handlers, or after async code has run, will not be caught.

This hook can be used to pass those errors to the nearest error boundary:

"use client";

import { useErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

function Example() {
  const { showBoundary } = useErrorBoundary();

  useEffect(() => {
    fetchGreeting(name).then(
      response => {
        // Set data in state and re-render
      },
      error => {
        // Show error boundary
        showBoundary(error);
      }
    );
  });

  // Render ...
}

Dismiss the nearest error boundary

A fallback component can use this hook to request the nearest error boundary retry the render that original failed.

"use client";

import { useErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";

function ErrorFallback({ error }) {
  const { resetBoundary } = useErrorBoundary();

  return (
    <div role="alert">
      <p>Something went wrong:</p>
      <pre style={{ color: "red" }}>{error.message}</pre>
      <button onClick={resetBoundary}>Try again</button>
    </div>
  );
}

withErrorBoundary HOC

This package can also be used as a higher-order component that accepts all of the same props as above:

"use client";

import {withErrorBoundary} from 'react-error-boundary'

const ComponentWithErrorBoundary = withErrorBoundary(ExampleComponent, {
  fallback: <div>Something went wrong</div>,
  onError(error, info) {
    // Do something with the error
    // E.g. log to an error logging client here
  },
})

// Can be rendered as <ComponentWithErrorBoundary {...props} />

---

This blog post shows more examples of how this package can be used, although it was written for the version 3 API.