is `try-catch` idiomatic in Kotlin?

# getting-started

[y]

is try-catch idiomatic in Kotlin?

[Sam]

I’d say no, on the whole: https://elizarov.medium.com/kotlin-and-exceptions-8062f589d07

[Stephan Schroeder]

@Sam so if I understand the article correctly, it advises to also have to nullable xOrNull functions for every x function that returns a non-nullable value and throws an exception.
But is try-catch inside those equivalent or less ideomatic

@Throws(...)
fun x(...): X = ...

fun xOrNull(...): X? = try {
  x(...)
} catch (e: Throwable) {
  null
}

than runCatching ?

fun xOrNull(...): X? = runCatching {
  x(...)
}.getOrNull()

[Sam]

Unless you specifically need the functionality of runCatching, `try`/`catch` is the more idiomatic choice. runCatching is intended specifically for those use cases where wrapping an execution into a Result enables functional style code that wouldn’t be possible without it. For general use, it actually has some disadvantages, like making it harder to be specific about which errors you want to catch. More info in the KEEP: https://github.com/Kotlin/KEEP/blob/master/proposals/stdlib/result.md

[y]

so what would be the way to deal with a Java function that can throw multiple exceptions, such that each exception is handled differently? there’s no alternative to try-catch here, right?

[cd1]

No, you can use try-catch, it's the more idiomatic approach.