There appears to have been a change in exception handling in ruby-1.8. In
1.6.8 I was able to create an object containing detailled information about
the exception for the benefit of the receiver, and pass it in the 'message’
field:
···
class Code
def initialize(code, text)
@code = code
@text = text
end
def to_s
"#{@text} (#{@code})"
end
def to_str
@text
end
end
begin
raise StandardError, Code.new(550, “Relaying Denied”)
rescue Exception => e
p $!.class
p $!.message.class
puts "Error: #{$!}"
puts "Error: #{$!.message}"
end
Under 1.6.8 this gives:
StandardError
Code
Error: #StandardError:0x8102ac4
Error: Relaying Denied (550)
But under 1.8.0 I get:
StandardError
String
Error: Relaying Denied
Error: Relaying Denied
It appears that my information object has been flattened into a string
before the exception itself is raised.
Was this intentional? If so, what should I do now? Would it be better to
embed my information directly in an exception object:
class MyException < StandardError
def initialize(code, text)
@code = code
@text = text
end
end
…
raise MyException.new(550,“Relaying Denied”)
I have this sort of thing all over my code, so I want to know the official
supported way of doing this before I start changing it all 
Thanks…
Brian.