More debug and error printing options by demonnic · Pull Request #5457 · Mudlet/Mudlet

demonnic · 2021-09-25T16:44:24Z

Brief overview of PR changes/additions

I use debugc a fair bit for printing information to the error console when I don't necessarily wish to halt execution, but either something has gone wrong or the information could be important for troubleshooting if they come looking for help.

But I have always kind of wanted the ability to print a more urgent error to the console without necessarily halting execution, and that snowballed to wanting something a bit more robust as well for both debug and error messages.

Adds an internal only function, errorc, which allows for printing detailed errors messages.

On the back of errorc and debugc, adds the following functions in Lua which provide extended functionality

printDebug(msg, showTrace)
- Prints msg using debugc, with basic information on where the printDebug was called from
- if showTrace is truthy, will also print the stacktrace beneath
printError(msg, showTrace, haltExecution)
- Prints msg as an error, with basic information on where printError was called from
- if showTrace is truthy, will also print the stacktrace beneath
- if haltExecution is truthy, printError will use error with the appropriate level set to where printError was called (not printError itself)
- if haltExecution is nil or false, printError will use errorc to print the information

The following image shows

printError with stackTrace false, haltExecution false
printError with stacktrace true, haltExecution false
error, just standard vanilla Lua error
printError with stacktrace true, haltExecution true

And the same, but from the main console

Altogether, from the error console in the script editor

Motivation for adding to Mudlet

I wanted to be able to register 'error' level messages without having to halt execution. And then I started thinking about all the information I usually want in such instances and decided to wrap the basic functionality to provide this information

Other info (issues closed, discussion etc)

I could not for the life of me figure out where the colors for printMessage were being set, so I used a color picker to match the r,g,b values. Open to suggestions on making this better, again focused on functionality to start.

After some feedback, this was changed to not expose errorc() to the user, but rather to use it as an entry point for printError. Since that is the case I rejiggered it a little bit to make it look more in line with the existing error messages.

Release post highlight

New functions printError and printDebug provide more information for debugging your scripts

…or out of the color_table

…ror checking and handling.

…n error. Does not halt execution.

… and error to provide more information, including stacktrace, for your debug and error messages.

add-deployment-links · 2021-09-25T16:44:50Z

Hey there! Thanks for helping Mudlet improve. 🌟

Test versions

You can directly test the changes here:

No need to install anything - just unzip and run.
Let us know if it works well, and if it doesn't, please give details.

demonnic · 2021-09-25T16:48:38Z

I... am not sure why it thinks it is grabbing the closest color changes as well. These were already merged before and shouldn't be showing up as diff either, I wouldn't think.

…ptions

github-actions · 2021-09-25T16:51:55Z

clang-tidy review says "All clean, LGTM! 👍"

demonnic · 2021-09-25T16:56:44Z

There we go, that looks better.

Delra · 2021-09-25T20:30:33Z

It's working fine for me! I really like this addition. The only thing I would say is that it would be nice to have more color in the messages using a scheme similar to what we already get from Mudlet errors- (Script: blah blah) in green and the rest of the text in red, really.

demonnic · 2021-09-25T22:43:38Z

The problem with that is errorc is meant to be a more direct 1:1 of debugc, which doesn't include any of that kind of information. I'm then just using errorc to generate the messages for printError, except when haltExecution is specified, then it uses error.

If I'd managed to find a decent example of lua_Debug in use (and not just the #&$ lutok wrapper code) I might have tried to implement printError and printDebug in C++ but without that trying to suss it out from scratch/docs would have doubled or more the time to write it for me.

If you've got any insights/hints into how to make that happen or wanna try tackling it that'd be awesome, though. I'm not against implementing it all in C++ if it's not going to make it a 3 day task instead of the 1 day task it's already been.

demonnic · 2021-09-25T22:59:02Z

~~hmm, actually, I may've just had an idea...~~

Could perhaps change errorc's behaviour such that the last argument supplied to it is the top of the stack/calling function info... IE the (Alias: run lua code:line 12) part of the printError output.

As it is right now both debugc and errorc combine their arguments into a single message and assigns them numbers. So I don't know how feasible it would be to change debugc now, but perhaps errorc could be different in this regard?

I'm open to suggestions.

demonnic · 2021-09-25T23:11:57Z

in the meantime, yay tests

Delra · 2021-09-26T02:29:08Z

I don't think it's important enough to warrant adding time before merge! It's genuinely great the way it is.

vadi2 · 2021-09-26T07:50:42Z

I really like the improvement here, and while I haven't dived into the code just yet, I'm first just stepping back and looking at the thousand foot view which gives us:

assert() (from Lua)
error() (from Lua)
errorc()
debugc() (existing function)
printDebug()
printError()

Do we think that it's intuitive for someone new coming to know which function should be used when?

demonnic · 2021-09-26T13:56:56Z

I'm not sure if I think that's the right question. Someone new probably isn't going to know about handling errors at all, and someone who does know error handling is likely to start at the Mudlet wiki I think, where we can funnel people to printError and printDebug. Which I honestly think I personally will be using in place of debugc and error.

It's a reasonable question, but I'm not sure if it applies here. At least I didn't go with Error and Debug?

In all seriousness, I think they're useful enough to leave in, and any confusion the extra set of functions might cause we can smooth over with documentation and support. But given how few people coming in seem to even know debugc is a thing I'm not sure most of the people who would be confused by it will notice it.

… formatting is more in line with the existing errors messages

demonnic · 2021-09-29T22:54:57Z

PR updated, along with opening comment. In short:

errorc not exposed to users
adds printError(msg, stackTrace, haltExecution) and printDebug(msg, stackTrace) as the only new exposed functions
printError errors now look more like errors generated by accident/using error()

demonnic · 2021-09-29T23:06:03Z

hmm, is making some tests a bit problematic due to how I was spying on things. will look into that in a little bit

…test' in order for tests to be able to spy on it.

demonnic · 2021-09-29T23:17:57Z

Slight adjustment to allow errorc to stick around in the self-test profile has the tests passing again. Remains nil in other profiles not named "Mudlet self-test"

…ptions

vadi2 · 2021-09-30T12:49:56Z

src/mudlet-lua/lua/DebugTools.lua

+  local showTrace = options.showTrace
+  local msg = options.msg or ""
+  local halt = options.halt
+  local stackTable = debug.traceback():gsub("\t", "  "):gsub("%[string ",""):split("\n")


Could it be optimized to only retrieve the traceback if it's needed? Afaik it's not a cheap function

if I can find another way of reliably determining what level of the stack to inspect for the function information, then yes. But I was not able to find that when I went looking. That being said, in testing just now it only took 0.022 seconds to run 1000 printDebug statements, so I'm not sure at 0.022 microseconds per printDebug it's adding significant overhead?

local epoch = getEpoch() for i=1,1000 do printDebug("This is a test!") end local totalTime = getEpoch() - epoch cecho(f"Took {totalTime} seconds to run 1000 printDebugs")

If you want to repeat the test

demonnic added 7 commits September 3, 2021 09:28

Add closest_color function for finding the most similar item to a col…

a2b73fc

…or out of the color_table

Adjust per feedback and add busted tests. Also a little additional er…

587447a

…ror checking and handling.

apply bounding to closestColor(r,g,b)

ec4657b

copypasta error

17a8024

Add errorc function, which works like debugc but presents itself as a…

9b1d4fd

…n error. Does not halt execution.

Add printDebug and printError lua wrappers around debugc, and errorc,…

1cf7b3e

… and error to provide more information, including stacktrace, for your debug and error messages.

Add links to where the documentation will reside, once it is written.

c755a64

demonnic added the needs documentation This pull request changes things the players would use/see and thus needs an update in the manual label Sep 25, 2021

demonnic requested a review from a team as a code owner September 25, 2021 16:44

demonnic requested review from a team September 25, 2021 16:44

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/development' into more_debug_o…

4f90b0a

…ptions

Add tests for printDebug and printError

7bdfbd4

vadi2 added this to the 4.14.0 milestone Sep 26, 2021

vadi2 assigned demonnic Sep 28, 2021

Make errorc internal only for use by printError, and adjust it so its…

a8a06a5

… formatting is more in line with the existing errors messages

allow errorc to be global if and only if the profile is 'Mudlet self-…

eb2601c

…test' in order for tests to be able to spy on it.

vadi2 approved these changes Sep 30, 2021

View reviewed changes

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/development' into more_debug_o…

584cf63

…ptions

vadi2 reviewed Sep 30, 2021

View reviewed changes

Make tests work with windows or linux path delimiters

0c0b45a

demonnic merged commit 8061fbc into Mudlet:development Oct 2, 2021

demonnic deleted the more_debug_options branch October 2, 2021 15:37

demonnic removed the needs documentation This pull request changes things the players would use/see and thus needs an update in the manual label Jan 25, 2022

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Brief overview of PR changes/additions

Motivation for adding to Mudlet

Other info (issues closed, discussion etc)

Release post highlight

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Test versions

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