David K. Bainbridge | 528b318 | 2017-01-23 08:51:59 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | // Copyright 2013, 2014 Canonical Ltd. |
| 2 | // Licensed under the LGPLv3, see LICENCE file for details. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | /* |
| 5 | [godoc-link-here] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | The juju/errors provides an easy way to annotate errors without losing the |
| 8 | orginal error context. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | The exported `New` and `Errorf` functions are designed to replace the |
| 11 | `errors.New` and `fmt.Errorf` functions respectively. The same underlying |
| 12 | error is there, but the package also records the location at which the error |
| 13 | was created. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | A primary use case for this library is to add extra context any time an |
| 16 | error is returned from a function. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | if err := SomeFunc(); err != nil { |
| 19 | return err |
| 20 | } |
| 21 | |
| 22 | This instead becomes: |
| 23 | |
| 24 | if err := SomeFunc(); err != nil { |
| 25 | return errors.Trace(err) |
| 26 | } |
| 27 | |
| 28 | which just records the file and line number of the Trace call, or |
| 29 | |
| 30 | if err := SomeFunc(); err != nil { |
| 31 | return errors.Annotate(err, "more context") |
| 32 | } |
| 33 | |
| 34 | which also adds an annotation to the error. |
| 35 | |
| 36 | When you want to check to see if an error is of a particular type, a helper |
| 37 | function is normally exported by the package that returned the error, like the |
| 38 | `os` package does. The underlying cause of the error is available using the |
| 39 | `Cause` function. |
| 40 | |
| 41 | os.IsNotExist(errors.Cause(err)) |
| 42 | |
| 43 | The result of the `Error()` call on an annotated error is the annotations joined |
| 44 | with colons, then the result of the `Error()` method for the underlying error |
| 45 | that was the cause. |
| 46 | |
| 47 | err := errors.Errorf("original") |
| 48 | err = errors.Annotatef(err, "context") |
| 49 | err = errors.Annotatef(err, "more context") |
| 50 | err.Error() -> "more context: context: original" |
| 51 | |
| 52 | Obviously recording the file, line and functions is not very useful if you |
| 53 | cannot get them back out again. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | errors.ErrorStack(err) |
| 56 | |
| 57 | will return something like: |
| 58 | |
| 59 | first error |
| 60 | github.com/juju/errors/annotation_test.go:193: |
| 61 | github.com/juju/errors/annotation_test.go:194: annotation |
| 62 | github.com/juju/errors/annotation_test.go:195: |
| 63 | github.com/juju/errors/annotation_test.go:196: more context |
| 64 | github.com/juju/errors/annotation_test.go:197: |
| 65 | |
| 66 | The first error was generated by an external system, so there was no location |
| 67 | associated. The second, fourth, and last lines were generated with Trace calls, |
| 68 | and the other two through Annotate. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | Sometimes when responding to an error you want to return a more specific error |
| 71 | for the situation. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | if err := FindField(field); err != nil { |
| 74 | return errors.Wrap(err, errors.NotFoundf(field)) |
| 75 | } |
| 76 | |
| 77 | This returns an error where the complete error stack is still available, and |
| 78 | `errors.Cause()` will return the `NotFound` error. |
| 79 | |
| 80 | */ |
| 81 | package errors |