Error: message

The message data property of an Error instance is a human-readable description of the error.

Value

A string corresponding to the value passed to the Error() constructor as the first argument.

Property attributes of Error: message
Writable yes
Enumerable no
Configurable yes

Description

This property contains a brief description of the error if one is available or has been set. The message property combined with the name property is used by the Error.prototype.toString() method to create a string representation of the Error.

By default, the message property is an empty string, but this behavior can be overridden for an instance by specifying a message as the first argument to the Error constructor.

Examples

Throwing a custom error

js
const e = new Error("Could not parse input");
// e.message is 'Could not parse input'
throw e;

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript Language Specification
# sec-error.prototype.message

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also