error.message

The message property is a human-readable description of the error.

Description

This property contains a brief description of the error if one is available or has been set. SpiderMonkey makes extensive use of the message property for exceptions. 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

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

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
ECMAScript 1st Edition (ECMA-262)	Standard	Initial definition.
ECMAScript 5.1 (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Error.prototype.message' in that specification.	Standard
ECMAScript 2015 (6th Edition, ECMA-262) The definition of 'Error.prototype.message' in that specification.	Standard
ECMAScript 2017 Draft (ECMA-262) The definition of 'Error.prototype.message' in that specification.	Draft

Browser compatibility

See also

• Error.prototype.name
• Error.prototype.toString()