Improve Error Messages

[martinrupp]

Improve Error Messages

[bsumirak]

I want to stress the point Martin has made here.
Error messages (not only when triggered by groovy code), do not provide enough detail, yet!
Especially the location of the error (at least: file and line; better: also class and method) should absolutely be included in any message (perhaps not necessarily on the canvas, but definitely in the log).
This would really help during debugging!

[miho]

I've improved the msg for project code. As Martin suggests, the deepest msg is shown:

Especially the location of the error (at least: file and line; better: also class and method) should absolutely be included in any message (perhaps not necessarily on the canvas, but definitely in the log).

The behavior depends on the message type. If it is an exception all available information will be shown in the log. If it is an error message, such as Cannot establish connection, there is no line number since this message is not based on an exception.

Please give some examples of error messages that do not behave as expected.

[bsumirak]

Thank you, Michael, for the partial fix.

Now, for example, I stumbled upon an exception caught in eu.mihosoft.vrl.io.vrlx.AbstractWindows, line 93:

for (AbstractWindow o : this) {
    try {
        CanvasWindow w = o.addToCanvas(mainCanvas);

        windows.add(new Pair<CanvasWindow, AbstractWindow>(w, o));

    } catch (Exception ex) {
        mainCanvas.getMessageBox().addUniqueMessage(
                "Error while loading windows!",
                ex.toString()
                + "  in method " + ex.getStackTrace()[0].getClassName()
                + ":" + ex.getStackTrace()[0].getMethodName()
                + "   in file: " + ex.getStackTrace()[0].getFileName()
                + ":" + ex.getStackTrace()[0].getLineNumber(),
                null, MessageType.ERROR);
        ex.printStackTrace(System.out);
        if (ex.getCause() != null) {
            mainCanvas.getMessageBox().addUniqueMessage("Error Message!",
                    ex.getCause().toString(), null, MessageType.ERROR);
        }

        Logger.getLogger(AbstractWindows.class.getName()).
                log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
    }
}

This exception is only displayed on Canvas (not in the log in the application) and, unfortunately, no information as to where it originated is printed anywhere. This one was quite a bit of a nuisance to me until I finally found out where it came from.

Another example is in eu.mihosoft.vrl.reflection.TypeRepresentationBase in line 1372:

try {
    ...
} catch (Exception ex) {

    ex.printStackTrace();

    if (getMainCanvas() != null) {
        MessageBox mBox = getMainCanvas().getMessageBox();

        String message = ex.toString();

        if (ex.getCause() != null) {
            message += "\n>> " + ex.getCause().toString();
        }

        mBox.addUniqueMessage("Can't evaluate value options:",
                "Class " + getType().getName() + "<br>" + ">> "
                + message, getConnector(), MessageType.WARNING);

    }
    Logger.getLogger(TypeRepresentationBase.class.getName()).
            log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}

Again, a message is displayed on the Canvas, yet no clue where the exception originates from.

In both cases, at least ex.getStackTrace()[0].getFileName() and ex.getStackTrace()[0].getLineNumber() could be called and the information be displayed. Personally, I would like to get a full stack trace in the log.

I suppose there will be more examples of that kind, however, those two have been in my particular way.

[miho]

New logging behaviour:

VRL registers a custom log handler to further improve the error output. Every logger that uses parent handlers via rootLogger.setUseParentHandlers(true); will be redirected to the log window. For loggers that don't use their parents redirection does not work since they can redirect to streams/files that are unknown. However, for most loggers this should be no problem.

Loggers with Level = SEVERE and Level = WARNING redirect to VRLs custom err stream. All others redirect to VRLs custom out stream.

Please report whether this fix works for you.

[miho]

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