The RAISE ERROR statement generates an error. The DBMS Server responds to this error exactly as it does to any other error. If the RAISE ERROR statement is issued by a database procedure that is directly executed, the error is handled using the default error handling behavior or the user-supplied error handling mechanism. If the statement is executed inside a procedure invoked by a rule, the DBMS Server terminates the database procedure and rolls back any changes made by the procedure and any made by the statement that fired the rule.

The error number that is specified as an argument to raise error is returned to sqlerrd(1), and can be accessed using INQUIRE_SQL(DBMSERROR).

The RAISE ERROR statement can be used in conjunction with the conditional statements to tell the DBMS Server that the results from the statement that fired the rule violate some specified condition or constraint. For example, if a user attempts to update a table, a rule can invoke a database procedure that checks the updated values for compliance with a specified constraint. If the updated values fail the check, the RAISE ERROR statement can be used to roll back those updates.