Why is this `RuntimeException` in the `collect` bl...

# coroutines

[Lukas Lechner]

Why is this RuntimeException in the collect block caught by the try-catch in the flow builder?

[Sam]

Because the code inside collect is actually run as part of the call to emit. Use the catch operator instead if you don’t want that behaviour (I think…)

[denis090712]

In fact, flow is composition of wrapper functions:
invocation of emit is invocation of collect function

fun interface Collector: (Int) -> Unit

fun main() {
    val flow: (Collector) -> Unit = { emit: Collector ->
        emit(1)
    }
    val collect = Collector { next: Int ->
        error("oops")
    }
    flow(collect)
}

[Lukas Lechner]

Thank you. Hmm, so another situation with coroutines/flows where you need to know the internals in order to understand the behaviour…

[Sam]

Or another reason to avoid using exceptions for error handling

[Lukas Lechner]

@Sam And use the Result class instead?

[Sam]

Something like that, yeah. I prefer the Either type from #arrow which has a few advantages over Result.

[Sam]

But any sealed class will do 👍

[Casey Brooks]

This case isn’t so much “knowing the internals” as it is just understanding the use-case of Flows in general. There’s a lot of internal details with Flows related to deeper coroutine mechanisms (fusing, coroutine context, etc) that you really don’t need to know about. But knowing how data and exceptions flow through a chain of Flow operators is just part of its feature set, and the behavior is very much an intentional part of the Flow API.

Each Flow operator basically wraps the entire chain before. So .collect { } basically wraps flow { } in such a way that emitted values flow down the chain, and exceptions flow back through all those layers in the opposite direction. It’s the same principle for why a function returns a value but exceptions are bubbled up the caller instead, because that’s the underlying mechanism and thought process of Flows: just a nested sequence of suspending function calls

[Eric Chee]

@Casey Brooks if i understand u correctly, basically the order of functions goes like:
flow( emit( collect() ) ) and when collect throws an exception, it bubbles up to emit cuz emit was the caller/trigger of the collect call

Just as any other exception bubbles up to its caller. Did i understand that correctly?

[Casey Brooks]

Yup, that’s the basic idea. You can even read the source of flow { } and collect { } to see that this is literally how the code flow is set up: emit() directly calls the lambda passed to collect { }. Things can get much more complicated with other operators, but this is the general principle behind it all