# How to throw a error in painless
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-throw-a-error-in-painless/176337
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [April 11, 2019, 7:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-throw-a-error-in-painless/176337 "2019-04-11T07:15:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Anurag\_Mankar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Anurag_Mankar)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2019, 7:15am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-throw-a-error-in-painless/176337/1 "2019-04-11T07:15:45Z")
> I want to return something so that I can identify that the below update is exceuted from "if " section or the "else" section. Is there a way to return or throw an exception
POST customer/\_update\_by\_query
{
"script":{
"source":"""
if(some condition)
{
// some processing
}
else
// throw some exception or return something so that it can be identified
"""
},
"query":{
// some Query here
}
}
> Thank You For your Help
---
### Author:  [@spinscale](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/spinscale)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2019, 2:07pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-throw-a-error-in-painless/176337/2 "2019-04-11T14:07:16Z")
Hey,
I am not sure I fully get the requirement, do you want to update the document in both cases or only in one. If the latter you can set `ctx.op = "noop"` which means, the document will not get updated. If the former, than it might make sense to add a second field which describes which action had been taken.
Hope this helps!
--Alex
---
### Author:  [@Anurag\_Mankar](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Anurag_Mankar)
#### Post date: [April 11, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-throw-a-error-in-painless/176337/3 "2019-04-11T15:12:01Z")
Hey Alex,
It is the latter one i.e. I want to update in only one case.
Your answer is helpful but what if I want to return some personalized message
through the response of the query if it go to the "else" case.
Will I be able to do that.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 9, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-throw-a-error-in-painless/176337/4 "2019-05-09T15:12:03Z")
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