The message
property is a human-readable description of the error.
Description
This property contains a brief description of the error if one is available or has been set. SpiderMonkey makes extensive use of the message
property for exceptions. The message
property combined with the name
property is used by the Error.prototype.toString()
method to create a string representation of the Error.
By default, the message
property is an empty string, but this behavior can be overridden for an instance by specifying a message as the first argument to the Error constructor
.
Examples
Throwing a custom error
var e = new Error('Could not parse input'); // e.message is 'Could not parse input' throw e;
Specifications
Specification | Status | Comment |
---|---|---|
ECMAScript 1st Edition (ECMA-262) | Standard | Initial definition. |
ECMAScript 5.1 (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Error.prototype.message' in that specification. |
Standard | |
ECMAScript 2015 (6th Edition, ECMA-262) The definition of 'Error.prototype.message' in that specification. |
Standard | |
ECMAScript 2017 Draft (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Error.prototype.message' in that specification. |
Draft |
Browser compatibility
Feature | Chrome | Firefox (Gecko) | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |
Feature | Android | Chrome for Android | Firefox Mobile (Gecko) | IE Mobile | Opera Mobile | Safari Mobile |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic support | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) | (Yes) |