The pngimage unit in Delphi includes a bunch of exception classes to handle error conditions when handling PNG files.  That’s great, except for one problem: all the classes inherit from Exception instead of an abstract EPNGException.  Of course it would be even better to inherit from a hierarchy of abstract exception classes.

Frankly I don’t care if the image is corrupt because it has an unknown critical chunk, or if it is corrupt because it has no image data.  All I care about is that my application cannot load an image and I need that condition handled gently.

Basically, not using a hierarchy of classes means that error handling code in applications loading PNG files must either be too broad and generic (on E:Exception), or too specific (on E:EPNGUnknownCriticalChunk).  Future changes to the PNG class library for additional exception types when loading a PNG file would require every developer to add additional exception checks to every location where PNG files are loaded in order to handle that error, when in nearly every case the developer really just wants to handle EInvalidGraphic!

Even worse, this means that generic code for loading images must be overloaded with knowledge about PNG exception types, or else risk masking more serious errors such as access violations with an overarching on E:Exception clause!

So here’s the current complete list that the developer must be aware of:

EPNGOutMemory = class(Exception);
EPngError = class(Exception);
EPngUnexpectedEnd = class(Exception);
EPngInvalidCRC = class(Exception);
EPngInvalidIHDR = class(Exception);
EPNGMissingMultipleIDAT = class(Exception);
EPNGZLIBError = class(Exception);
EPNGInvalidPalette = class(Exception);
EPNGInvalidFileHeader = class(Exception);
EPNGIHDRNotFirst = class(Exception);
EPNGNotExists = class(Exception);
EPNGSizeExceeds = class(Exception);
EPNGMissingPalette = class(Exception);
EPNGUnknownCriticalChunk = class(Exception);
EPNGUnknownCompression = class(Exception);
EPNGUnknownInterlace = class(Exception);
EPNGNoImageData = class(Exception);
EPNGCouldNotLoadResource = class(Exception);
EPNGCannotChangeTransparent = class(Exception);
EPNGHeaderNotPresent = class(Exception);
EPNGInvalidNewSize = class(Exception);
EPNGInvalidSpec = class(Exception);

I’m disappointed that when this code was acquired and integrated into the Delphi source code, that this level of basic tidy up was not done.