sequential try catch end block for matlab

Question

I'd like to run several lines of code, but I'm unsure if any line will throw an error. If an error occurs however, I'd like the script to ignore that line and continue on.

One choice would be to have a try-catch-end block, that skips over a block of code that may throw errors. However, as soon as an error occurs, the rest of the code after the error in the try-statement is not executed.

TL;TR: Do I have another choice than writing a try-catch-end block for every individual line in the following example code?

Example code:

try
  disp('1st line');
  disp('2nd line');
  PRODUCE_ERROR;  %throws an error, variable/function does not exist
  disp('3rd line'); %%%%%
  disp('4th line'); % these lines I would like to keep executing
  disp('5th line'); %%%%%
catch
  disp('something unexpected happened');
end

Output:

1st line
2nd line
something unexpected happened

Output that would be preferred:

1st line
2nd line
something unexpected happened
3rd line
4th line
5th line

related: Why should I not wrap every block in "try"-"catch"?

Answer 1

One option is to put each section of code in a function and iterate over a cell array of the function handles. Here's an example with a list of anonymous functions:

fcnList = {@() disp('1'); ...
           @() disp('2'); ...
           @() error(); ...    % Third function throws an error
           @() disp('4')};

for fcnIndex = 1:numel(fcnList)
  try
    fcnList{fcnIndex}();  % Evaluate each function
  catch
    fprintf('Error with function %d.
', fcnIndex);  % Display when an error happens
  end
end

And here's the output this generates, showing that functions are still evaluated even after one throws an error:

1
2
Error with function 3.
4

The above example works for the case when you have individual lines of code you want to evaluate sequentially, but you can't fit multiple lines into an anonymous function. In this case, I would go with nested functions if they have to access variables in the larger workspace or local functions if they can operate independently. Here's an example with nested functions:

function fcn1
  b = a+1;     % Increments a
  fprintf('%d
', b);
end
function fcn2
  error();     % Errors
end
function fcn3
  b = a.^2;    % Squares a
  fprintf('%d
', b);
end

a = 2;
fcnList = {@fcn1 @fcn2 @fcn3};

for fcnIndex = 1:numel(fcnList)
  try
    fcnList{fcnIndex}();
  catch
    fprintf('Error with function %d.
', fcnIndex);
  end
end

And the output:

3
Error with function 2.
4