🦌 elk

An extensive error package with focus on comprehensiveness, tracability and ease of use.

Warning
This package is currently still in a proof-of-concept state and might undergo breaking API changes in the future until v1.0.0 is released.

Getting started

elk provides a simple error model called Error. It is classified by an ErrorCode and either wraps a given inner error or creates one if there is no underlying error. You can also pass an optional message to provide more detailed context to the error. Errors also record the callstack from where they have been created so that they can be easily traced thorugh the codebase, if necessary.

Create a detailed error with an error code and message.

const ErrDeviceNotFound = elk.ErrorCode("device-not-found")

err := elk.NewError(ErrDeviceNotFound, "the device could not be found")

Wrap a previous error with an error code and message.

device, err := db.GetDevice(id)
if err != nil {
    err = elk.Wrap(elk.CodeUnexpected, err,
        "failed receiving device from database")
}

Error also implements the fmt.Formatter interface so you can granularly control how errors are displayed. See the Formatting section for more information.

The recommended way to use this construct is to wrap an error on each layer in your application where the error changes the state of the outcome of the error. In example, when your database returns an ErrNoRows error and in your controller, that means that no values could be found for the given request, you can wrap the original database error with an error Code (ErrObjectNotFound i.E.) and an additional message to clarify what went wrong to either the user or developers of the layers above, if desired.

This way, you can give other meaning to errors on each layer without losign details about each consecutive error.

How to distinct Errors

The Error model is designed with clear error codes in mind to distinct them in a higher level in your application to finely control error behavior.

A specific example could be the top level route handler in a web server that calls a controller method which can fail in multiple different ways.

func handleGetData(ctl *Controller, w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
    id := r.URL.Query().Get("id")
    if id == "" {
        w.WriteHeader(http.StatusBadRequest)
        return
    }

    res, err := ctl.GetData(id)
    if err != nil {
        // Cast always returns an error of type `Error`, even if the returned
        // err is not. Then, it will be wrapped into an `Error` with code
        // elk.CodeUnexpected.
        switch elk.Cast(err).Code() {
        case ErrorDataNotFound:
            w.WriteHeader(http.StatusNotFound)
        case ErrorNoPermission:
            w.WriteHeader(http.StatusForbidden)
        default:
            // These are errors that might hint to a missbehavior of the 
            // application and thus, errors are logged using the detailed
            // format.
            log.Printf("error: %+.5v\n", err)
            w.WriteHeader(http.StatusInternalServerError)
        }
        // Display a comprehensive JSON representation of the error
        // containing the error code and the potential message.
        // The underlying error is not shown by default to prevent
        // leakage of internal application information.
        w.Write(elk.MustJson(err))
        return
    }

    d, _ := json.MarshalIndent(res, "", "  ")
    w.Write(d)
}

Formatting

In examples/formatting, you can find the different formatting options in use. Execute it to see them in action in your terminal!

As mentioned above, Error implements fmt.Formatter. So there are some custom options for printing Error instances.

%s or %q

Prints a single message in a single line. If the error has a message, the message is shown. Otherwise, the %s formatted contents of the inner error is displayed.

const MyErrorCode = elk.ErrorCode("my-error-code")

err := elk.Wrap(MyErrorCode,
    errors.New("somethign went wrong"),
    "Damn, what happened?")

fmt.Printf("%s\n", err)
// Output: Damn, what happened?

%v

Without any further flags, this prints a single line combined output of the wrapped errors code, message (if set) and inner errors text.

const MyErrorCode = elk.ErrorCode("my-error-code")

err := elk.Wrap(MyErrorCode,
    errors.New("somethign went wrong"),
    "Damn, what happened?")

fmt.Printf("%v\n", err)
// Output: <my-error-code> Damn, what happened? (somethign went wrong)

With the additional flag +, more details are shown like the callstack (see Callstack secion) of the error and the inner error. By passing the precision parameter (i.E. %+.5v), you can specify the maximum depth of the shown callstack. By default, a depth of 1000 is assumed. If you set this to 0, no call stack is printed.

const MyErrorCode = elk.ErrorCode("my-error-code")

err := elk.Wrap(MyErrorCode,
    errors.New("somethign went wrong"),
    "Damn, what happened?")

fmt.Printf("%+.5v\n", err)
// Output:
// <my-error-code> Damn, what happened?
// stack:
//   main.main             /home/r.hoffmann@intern.b12-group.de/dev/lib/whoops/examples/formatting/main.go:50
//   runtime.main          /home/r.hoffmann@intern.b12-group.de/.local/goup/current/go/src/runtime/proc.go:250
//   runtime.goexit        /home/r.hoffmann@intern.b12-group.de/.local/goup/current/go/src/runtime/asm_amd64.s:1598
// inner error:
//   somethign went wrong

By setting the flag #, you can enable a verbose view of the error. This unwraps all layers of the error and prints a detailed overview of each visted error containing the error string, origin (where it has been wrapped) and the type of the error. You can also specify the maximum depth that shall be displayed by giving the precision parameter (i.E. %#.5v). When not specified, a default value of 1000 is assumed.

const MyErrorCode = elk.ErrorCode("my-error-code")

err := elk.Wrap(MyErrorCode,
    errors.New("somethign went wrong"),
    "Damn, what happened?")

fmt.Printf("%#.5v\n", err)
// Output:
// <my-error-code> Damn, what happened?
// originated:
//   main.main /home/r.hoffmann@intern.b12-group.de/dev/lib/whoops/examples/formatting/main.go:59
// type:
//   elk.Error
// ----------
// somethign went wrong
// type:
//   *errors.errorString
// ----------

Callstack

When creating an Error–either by wrapping a previous error using Wrap or creating it using NewError–, it records where it has been wrapped in the Code in a CallStack object. This can then be accessed via the CallStack getter or is displayed when using the detailed and verbose formatting options as shown previously.

The CallStack contains a list of subsequent callers starting from the point where the CallStack has been created (when creating an Error instance, i.E.) followed by each previous caller of that function.

This CallStack object efficiently stores the frame pointers and resolves the context when calling the Frames getter on it.

Inner frames are wrapped using the CallFrame type, which also provides some formatting utilities.

Using the %s formatting verb, the CallFrame is printed in the following format.

main.main /home/me/dev/lib/elk/examples/formatting/main.go:59

When using the %v verb, it is formatted using the %v formatting on the underlying runtime.Frame.

Contribute

If you find any issues, want to submit a suggestion for a new feature or improvement of an existing one or just want to ask a question, feel free to create an Issue.

If you want to contribute to the project, just create a fork and create a pull request with your changes. We are happy to review your contribution and make you a part of the project. 😄

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© 2023 B12-Touch GmbH
https://b12-touch.de

Covered by the BSD 3-Clause License.