Preserve the Original Exception with PREVIOUS

WarningAnti-Patterns & Bad Practices#EC NO_EXC_CHAINRemote Enabled

Overview

Preserve the original exception with PREVIOUS.

ATC Finding Message: Converted exception does not follow the PREVIOUS chaining policy

Rationale

When a handler converts an exception into a new one without setting previous, the caller loses the root cause and only sees the outer symptom. Passing the caught exception object through the previous attribute keeps the full chain available in the stack trace and in RAP error logs. The rule inspects RAISE EXCEPTION NEW and RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE inside CATCH ... INTO handlers.

Non-Compliant

TRY.
    lo_http->send( ).
  CATCH cx_http_error INTO lx_http.
    RAISE EXCEPTION NEW zcx_upload_failed( ).
ENDTRY.

Compliant

TRY.
    lo_http->send( ).
  CATCH cx_http_error INTO lx_http.
    RAISE EXCEPTION NEW zcx_upload_failed( previous = lx_http ).
ENDTRY.

Configuration & Thresholds

This check can be fine-tuned directly in the ATC Check Variant Editor (CHKV) in Eclipse ADT:

Parameter Name	Data Type	Default Value	Description & Guidance
REQUIRE_PREVIOUS	Boolean	true	Report converted exceptions without PREVIOUS (default); disable to report the opposite style

Suppression

To suppress findings for this rule, append the pseudo-comment to the statement:

" Standard pseudo-comment:
... "#EC NO_EXC_CHAIN

" SAP CI_ prefix format:
... "#EC CI_NO_EXC_CHAIN

Related Rules

• Avoid CATCH Blocks That Only Re-raise the Same Exception — #EC NO_CATCH_RERAISE
• Avoid Catching Generic CX_ROOT (Catch Specific Exceptions) — #EC NO_CATCH_ROOT
• Prefer Class-Based Exceptions over Classic EXCEPTIONS — #EC PREF_CLASS_EXC

Technical Details

• Native ATC Class: ZCL_SKYLINT_NO_EXC_CHAIN
• Implementation File: zcl_skylint_no_exc_chain.clas.abap