git/Documentation/technical/api-error-handling.txt
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 0cc05b044f usage.c: add a non-fatal bug() function to go with BUG()
Add a bug() function to use in cases where we'd like to indicate a
runtime BUG(), but would like to defer the BUG() call because we're
possibly accumulating more bug() callers to exhaustively indicate what
went wrong.

We already have this sort of facility in various parts of the
codebase, just in the form of ad-hoc re-inventions of the
functionality that this new API provides. E.g. this will be used to
replace optbug() in parse-options.c, and the 'error("BUG:[...]' we do
in a loop in builtin/receive-pack.c.

Unlike the code this replaces we'll log to trace2 with this new bug()
function (as with other usage.c functions, including BUG()), we'll
also be able to avoid calls to xstrfmt() in some cases, as the bug()
function itself accepts variadic sprintf()-like arguments.

Any caller to bug() can follow up such calls with BUG_if_bug(),
which will BUG() out (i.e. abort()) if there were any preceding calls
to bug(), callers can also decide not to call BUG_if_bug() and leave
the resulting BUG() invocation until exit() time. There are currently
no bug() API users that don't call BUG_if_bug() themselves after a
for-loop, but allowing for not calling BUG_if_bug() keeps the API
flexible. As the tests and documentation here show we'll catch missing
BUG_if_bug() invocations in our exit() wrapper.

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
2022-06-02 12:51:35 -07:00

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Error reporting in git
======================
`BUG`, `bug`, `die`, `usage`, `error`, and `warning` report errors of
various kinds.
- `BUG` is for failed internal assertions that should never happen,
i.e. a bug in git itself.
- `bug` (lower-case, not `BUG`) is supposed to be used like `BUG` but
prints a "BUG" message instead of calling `abort()`.
+
A call to `bug()` will then result in a "real" call to the `BUG()`
function, either explicitly by invoking `BUG_if_bug()` after call(s)
to `bug()`, or implicitly at `exit()` time where we'll check if we
encountered any outstanding `bug()` invocations.
+
If there were no prior calls to `bug()` before invoking `BUG_if_bug()`
the latter is a NOOP. The `BUG_if_bug()` function takes the same
arguments as `BUG()` itself. Calling `BUG_if_bug()` explicitly isn't
necessary, but ensures that we die as soon as possible.
+
If you know you had prior calls to `bug()` then calling `BUG()` itself
is equivalent to calling `BUG_if_bug()`, the latter being a wrapper
calling `BUG()` if we've set a flag indicating that we've called
`bug()`.
+
This is for the convenience of APIs who'd like to potentially report
more than one "bug", such as the optbug() validation in
parse-options.c.
- `die` is for fatal application errors. It prints a message to
the user and exits with status 128.
- `usage` is for errors in command line usage. After printing its
message, it exits with status 129. (See also `usage_with_options`
in the link:api-parse-options.html[parse-options API].)
- `error` is for non-fatal library errors. It prints a message
to the user and returns -1 for convenience in signaling the error
to the caller.
- `warning` is for reporting situations that probably should not
occur but which the user (and Git) can continue to work around
without running into too many problems. Like `error`, it
returns -1 after reporting the situation to the caller.
These reports will be logged via the trace2 facility. See the "error"
event in link:api-trace2.txt[trace2 API].
Customizable error handlers
---------------------------
The default behavior of `die` and `error` is to write a message to
stderr and then exit or return as appropriate. This behavior can be
overridden using `set_die_routine` and `set_error_routine`. For
example, "git daemon" uses set_die_routine to write the reason `die`
was called to syslog before exiting.
Library errors
--------------
Functions return a negative integer on error. Details beyond that
vary from function to function:
- Some functions return -1 for all errors. Others return a more
specific value depending on how the caller might want to react
to the error.
- Some functions report the error to stderr with `error`,
while others leave that for the caller to do.
- errno is not meaningful on return from most functions (except
for thin wrappers for system calls).
Check the function's API documentation to be sure.
Caller-handled errors
---------------------
An increasing number of functions take a parameter 'struct strbuf *err'.
On error, such functions append a message about what went wrong to the
'err' strbuf. The message is meant to be complete enough to be passed
to `die` or `error` as-is. For example:
if (ref_transaction_commit(transaction, &err))
die("%s", err.buf);
The 'err' parameter will be untouched if no error occurred, so multiple
function calls can be chained:
t = ref_transaction_begin(&err);
if (!t ||
ref_transaction_update(t, "HEAD", ..., &err) ||
ret_transaction_commit(t, &err))
die("%s", err.buf);
The 'err' parameter must be a pointer to a valid strbuf. To silence
a message, pass a strbuf that is explicitly ignored:
if (thing_that_can_fail_in_an_ignorable_way(..., &err))
/* This failure is okay. */
strbuf_reset(&err);