Microsoft® SQL Server 2008 R2 Unleashed

TRY...CATCH Logic for Error Handling

SQL Server 2005 also introduced the TRY...CATCH construct, which you can use within T-SQL code to provide a more graceful mechanism for exception handling than was available in previous versions of SQL Server. In versions prior to 2005, error handling was typically done by checking @@ERROR after each SQL statement and often using the GOTO statement to branch to an error-handling routine.

A TRY...CATCH construct consists of two parts: a TRY block and CATCH block. When an error condition is detected in a T-SQL statement that is inside a TRY block, control is immediately passed to the CATCH block, where the error is processed. T-SQL statements in the TRY block that follow the statement that generated the error ...