---
schema_version: "1"
id: 707b89d6cc3dba11d930034a95013dbd67559ef64964376cacafcdbd692c76ab
title: fail
collection: mulesoft
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canonical_url: https://docs.mulesoft.com/dataweave/latest/dw-runtime-functions-fail
source_site: docs.mulesoft.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 0785c73f71e78e001aad4c816c952c263d85c1852902ac1ad569edb7fa24292d
description: MuleSoft Documentation Site
release: "2.13"
latest: true
---
---
product: DataWeave
version: 2.13
is-latest-version: true
---

# fail

> For the full documentation index, see: https://docs.mulesoft.com/llms.txt

## fail(message: String = 'Error'): Nothing

Throws an exception with the specified message.

### Parameters

<table><colgroup><col> <col></colgroup><thead><tr><th>Name</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><p><code>message</code></p></td><td><p>An error message (<code>String</code>).</p></td></tr></tbody></table>

### Example

This example returns a failure message `Data was empty` because the expression
`(sizeOf(myVar) <= 0)` is `true`. A shortened version of the error message is shown in the output.

#### Source

```DataWeave
%dw 2.0
import * from dw::Runtime
var result = []
output application/json
---
if(sizeOf(result) <= 0) fail('Data was empty') else result
```

#### Output

```TXT
ERROR 2018-07-29 11:47:44,983 ...
*********************************
Message               : "Data was empty
...
```