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-rw-r--r--src/libutil/error.cc122
-rw-r--r--src/libutil/error.hh16
2 files changed, 130 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/src/libutil/error.cc b/src/libutil/error.cc
index 1a1aecea5..e4f0d4677 100644
--- a/src/libutil/error.cc
+++ b/src/libutil/error.cc
@@ -9,9 +9,9 @@ namespace nix {
const std::string nativeSystem = SYSTEM;
-void BaseError::addTrace(std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> && e, hintformat hint)
+void BaseError::addTrace(std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> && e, hintformat hint, bool frame)
{
- err.traces.push_front(Trace { .pos = std::move(e), .hint = hint });
+ err.traces.push_front(Trace { .pos = std::move(e), .hint = hint, .frame = frame });
}
// c++ std::exception descendants must have a 'const char* what()' function.
@@ -200,13 +200,125 @@ std::ostream & showErrorInfo(std::ostream & out, const ErrorInfo & einfo, bool s
auto noSource = ANSI_ITALIC " (source not available)" ANSI_NORMAL "\n";
- // traces
- if (showTrace && !einfo.traces.empty()) {
+ /*
+ * Traces
+ * ------
+ *
+ * The semantics of traces is a bit weird. We have only one option to
+ * print them and to make them verbose (--show-trace). In the code they
+ * are always collected, but they are not printed by default. The code
+ * also collects more traces when the option is on. This means that there
+ * is no way to print the simplified traces at all.
+ *
+ * I (layus) designed the code to attach positions to a restricted set of
+ * messages. This means that we have a lot of traces with no position at
+ * all, including most of the base error messages. For example "type
+ * error: found a string while a set was expected" has no position, but
+ * will come with several traces detailing it's precise relation to the
+ * closest know position. This makes erroring without printing traces
+ * quite useless.
+ *
+ * This is why I introduced the idea to always print a few traces on
+ * error. The number 3 is quite arbitrary, and was selected so as not to
+ * clutter the console on error. For the same reason, a trace with an
+ * error position takes more space, and counts as two traces towards the
+ * limit.
+ *
+ * The rest is truncated, unless --show-trace is passed. This preserves
+ * the same bad semantics of --show-trace to both show the trace and
+ * augment it with new data. Not too sure what is the best course of
+ * action.
+ *
+ * The issue is that it is fundamentally hard to provide a trace for a
+ * lazy language. The trace will only cover the current spine of the
+ * evaluation, missing things that have been evaluated before. For
+ * example, most type errors are hard to inspect because there is not
+ * trace for the faulty value. These errors should really print the faulty
+ * value itself.
+ *
+ * In function calls, the --show-trace flag triggers extra traces for each
+ * function invocation. These work as scopes, allowing to follow the
+ * current spine of the evaluation graph. Without that flag, the error
+ * trace should restrict itself to a restricted prefix of that trace,
+ * until the first scope. If we ever get to such a precise error
+ * reporting, there would be no need to add an arbitrary limit here. We
+ * could always print the full trace, and it would just be small without
+ * the flag.
+ *
+ * One idea I had is for XxxError.addTrace() to perform nothing if one
+ * scope has already been traced. Alternatively, we could stop here when
+ * we encounter such a scope instead of after an arbitrary number of
+ * traces. This however requires to augment traces with the notion of
+ * "scope".
+ *
+ * This is particularly visible in code like evalAttrs(...) where we have
+ * to make a decision between the two following options.
+ *
+ * ``` long traces
+ * inline void EvalState::evalAttrs(Env & env, Expr * e, Value & v, const Pos & pos, std::string_view errorCtx)
+ * {
+ * try {
+ * e->eval(*this, env, v);
+ * if (v.type() != nAttrs)
+ * throwTypeError("value is %1% while a set was expected", v);
+ * } catch (Error & e) {
+ * e.addTrace(pos, errorCtx);
+ * throw;
+ * }
+ * }
+ * ```
+ *
+ * ``` short traces
+ * inline void EvalState::evalAttrs(Env & env, Expr * e, Value & v, const Pos & pos, std::string_view errorCtx)
+ * {
+ * e->eval(*this, env, v);
+ * try {
+ * if (v.type() != nAttrs)
+ * throwTypeError("value is %1% while a set was expected", v);
+ * } catch (Error & e) {
+ * e.addTrace(pos, errorCtx);
+ * throw;
+ * }
+ * }
+ * ```
+ *
+ * The second example can be rewritten more concisely, but kept in this
+ * form to highlight the symmetry. The first option adds more information,
+ * because whatever caused an error down the line, in the generic eval
+ * function, will get annotated with the code location that uses and
+ * required it. The second option is less verbose, but does not provide
+ * any context at all as to where and why a failing value was required.
+ *
+ * Scopes would fix that, by adding context only when --show-trace is
+ * passed, and keeping the trace terse otherwise.
+ *
+ */
+
+ // Enough indent to align with with the `... `
+ // prepended to each element of the trace
+ auto ellipsisIndent = " ";
+
+ bool frameOnly = false;
+ if (!einfo.traces.empty()) {
+ size_t count = 0;
for (const auto & trace : einfo.traces) {
+ if (!showTrace && count > 3) {
+ oss << "\n" << ANSI_WARNING "(stack trace truncated; use '--show-trace' to show the full trace)" ANSI_NORMAL << "\n";
+ break;
+ }
+
+ if (trace.hint.str().empty()) continue;
+ if (frameOnly && !trace.frame) continue;
+
+ count++;
+ frameOnly = trace.frame;
+
oss << "\n" << "… " << trace.hint.str() << "\n";
if (trace.pos) {
- oss << "\n" << ANSI_BLUE << "at " ANSI_WARNING << *trace.pos << ANSI_NORMAL << ":";
+ count++;
+
+ oss << "\n" << ellipsisIndent << ANSI_BLUE << "at " ANSI_WARNING << *trace.pos << ANSI_NORMAL << ":";
if (auto loc = trace.pos->getCodeLines()) {
oss << "\n";
diff --git a/src/libutil/error.hh b/src/libutil/error.hh
index c3bb8c0df..7d236028c 100644
--- a/src/libutil/error.hh
+++ b/src/libutil/error.hh
@@ -86,6 +86,7 @@ void printCodeLines(std::ostream & out,
struct Trace {
std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> pos;
hintformat hint;
+ bool frame;
};
struct ErrorInfo {
@@ -114,6 +115,8 @@ protected:
public:
unsigned int status = 1; // exit status
+ BaseError(const BaseError &) = default;
+
template<typename... Args>
BaseError(unsigned int status, const Args & ... args)
: err { .level = lvlError, .msg = hintfmt(args...) }
@@ -152,15 +155,22 @@ public:
const std::string & msg() const { return calcWhat(); }
const ErrorInfo & info() const { calcWhat(); return err; }
+ void pushTrace(Trace trace)
+ {
+ err.traces.push_front(trace);
+ }
+
template<typename... Args>
- void addTrace(std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> && e, const std::string & fs, const Args & ... args)
+ void addTrace(std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> && e, std::string_view fs, const Args & ... args)
{
- addTrace(std::move(e), hintfmt(fs, args...));
+ addTrace(std::move(e), hintfmt(std::string(fs), args...));
}
- void addTrace(std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> && e, hintformat hint);
+ void addTrace(std::shared_ptr<AbstractPos> && e, hintformat hint, bool frame = false);
bool hasTrace() const { return !err.traces.empty(); }
+
+ const ErrorInfo & info() { return err; };
};
#define MakeError(newClass, superClass) \