Why Error handling in ExpressJs is Necessary in Your Application

Isaac Etor
2 min readJan 26, 2023

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Any web application needs to have error handling, and Express.js is no exception. We will discuss error handling in an Express.js application in this article.

Middleware functions and error-handling routes are two of Express.js's error handling options.

What are middlewares?

Middleware is a function that is run before the final request handler in Express.js. It can alter or manipulate either the incoming request or the outgoing response by sitting in between them.

Middleware can log requests, authenticate users, parse data from incoming requests, and include custom headers in response messages. The order in which middleware is added to an application is crucial because middleware functions are executed in that order.

So, using middleware functions in an Express.js application is one way to deal with errors. Authentication, logging, and error handling are all examples of middleware functions that have access to the request and response objects and can be used to carry out a variety of tasks. You can create a middleware function that will be called when an error occurs to handle errors with middleware. The error can then be handled by this function, such as sending the client a specific status code or message.

Using error-handling routes in an Express.js application is yet another method for handling errors. When an application encounters an error, error-handling routes are called. You can use the app.use function to create an error-handling route. This function lets you specify a callback function that will be called when an error occurs. The error can then be appropriately handled by this callback function.

Express.js provides a built-in error handler that can be utilized to handle errors in addition to middleware and error-handling routes. A middleware function, this built-in error handler accepts the following four arguments: next, error, request, and response.

A third-party library like express-async-errors or http-errors can also be used to handle errors in a more elegant manner.

In general, it is essential to have a solid error handling strategy in place in order to guarantee that your Express.js application will be able to handle any errors that might occur and respond appropriately to them.

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Isaac Etor
Isaac Etor

Written by Isaac Etor

A poet and full stack software engineer. also equipped with design thinking, project management skills, transformational leadership skill, and a speaker.

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