The ZOOM::exception class is a virtual base
    class, representing a diagnostic generated by the ZOOM-C++ library
    or returned from a server.  Its subclasses represent particular
    kinds of error.
   
    When any of the ZOOM methods fail, they respond by
    throwing an object of type
    exception or one of its subclasses.  This most
    usually happens with the connection constructor,
    the various query constructors, the resultSet
    constructor (which is actually the searching method), and
    resultSet::getRecord().
   
The base class has this declaration:
    class exception {
    public:
      exception (int code);
      int errcode () const;
      const char *errmsg () const;
    };
   It has three concrete subclasses:
     class systemException: public exception {
     public:
       systemException ();
       int errcode () const;
       const char *errmsg () const;
     };
    
     Represents a ``system error'', typically indicating that a system
     call failed - often in the low-level networking code that
     underlies Z39.50.  errcode() returns the value
     that the system variable errno had at the time
     the exception was constructed; and errmsg()
     returns a human-readable error-message corresponding to that error
     code.
    
     class bib1Exception: public exception {
     public:
       bib1Exception (int errcode, const char *addinfo);
       int errcode () const;
       const char *errmsg () const;
       const char *addinfo () const;
     };
    
     Represents an error condition communicated by a Z39.50 server.
     errcode() returns the BIB-1 diagnostic code of
     the error, and errmsg() a human-readable error
     message corresponding to that code.  addinfo()
     returns any additional information associated with the error.
    
     For example, if a ZOOM application tries to search in the
     ``Voyager'' database of a server that does not have a database of
     that name, a bib1Exception will be thrown in
     which errcode() returns 109,
     errmsg() returns the corresponding error
     message ``Database unavailable'' and addinfo()
     returns the name of the requested, but unavailable, database.
    
     class queryException: public exception {
     public:
       static const int PREFIX = 1;
       static const int CCL = 2;
       queryException (int qtype, const char *source);
       int errcode () const;
       const char *errmsg () const;
       const char *addinfo () const;
     };
    
     This class represents an error in parsing a query into a form that
     Z39.50 can understand.  It must be created with the
     qtype parameter equal to one of the query-type
     constants, which can be retrieved via the
     errcode() method; errmsg()
     returns an error-message specifying which kind of query was
     malformed; and addinfo() returns a copy of the
     query itself (that is, the value of source with
     which the exception object was created.)
    
Now we can revise the sample program from the introduction to catch exceptions and report any errors:
    /* g++ -o zoom-c++-hw zoom-c++-hw.cpp -lzoompp -lyaz */
    #include <iostream>
    #include <yazpp/zoom.h>
    using namespace ZOOM;
    int main(int argc, char **argv)
    {
        try {
            connection conn("lx2.loc.gov", 210);
            conn.option("databaseName", "LCDB");
            conn.option("preferredRecordSyntax", "USMARC");
            resultSet rs(conn, prefixQuery("@attr 1=7 0253333490"));
            const record *rec = rs.getRecord(0);
            cout << rec->render() << endl;
        } catch (systemException &e) {
            cerr << "System error " <<
                e.errcode() << " (" << e.errmsg() << ")" << endl;
        } catch (bib1Exception &e) {
            cerr << "BIB-1 error " << 
                e.errcode() << " (" << e.errmsg() << "): " << e.addinfo() << endl;
        } catch (queryException &e) {
            cerr << "Query error " <<
                e.errcode() << " (" << e.errmsg() << "): " << e.addinfo() << endl;
        } catch (exception &e) {
            cerr << "Error " <<
                e.errcode() << " (" << e.errmsg() << ")" << endl;
        }
    }
    
     The heart of this program is the same as in the original version,
     but it's now wrapped in a try block followed by
     several catch blocks which try to give helpful
     diagnostics if something goes wrong.
    
     The first such block diagnoses system-level errors such as memory
     exhaustion or a network connection being broken by a server's
     untimely death; the second catches errors at the Z39.50 level,
     such as a server's report that it can't provide records in USMARC
     syntax; the third is there in case there's something wrong with
     the syntax of the query (although in this case it's correct); and
     finally, the last catch block is a
     belt-and-braces measure to be sure that nothing escapes us.
    
     Because C does not support exceptions, ZOOM-C has no API element
     that corresponds directly with ZOOM-C++'s
     exception class and its subclasses.  The
     closest thing is the ZOOM_connection_error
     function described in the
     Connections section of the documentation.