Uncaught exception

[satazor]

I noticed that node-tmp is not cleaning the temporary directories if node dies on an uncaught exception.
This could be fixed with:

process.on('uncaughtException', function (err) {
  // Cleanup here
  throw err;
});

Any reasons for not doing so?

[raszi]

I'm not sure it's a good idea.

If there is an uncaught exception then something went really wrong, and one would check the reason of it. And it's better to keep the state as it was (and this state also includes the temporary files).

Of course you could argue with this and state your point.

[satazor]

While I agree that something is wrong with code, there is bugs in almost every program. By adding this feature, we would accomplish graceful degradation regarding the cleanup.

If you do not implement this, can you at least expose the _garbageCollector function?

[raszi]

Yeah, I can absolutely do the latter. And I can even create a method which will do the graceful cleanup if needed.

[satazor]

That would be great!

[raszi]

I implemented a graceful cleanup option.

Could you take a look please and check that is what you needed?

[satazor]

Sure, will test it tonight.

[satazor]

@raszi seems to be working, can you please push a new npm release?

[raszi]

of course, I was waiting for your feedback.

[satazor]

@raszi there is one problem with the implementation atm.

Because _removeObjects.push is only being done when the directory is created, there is situations in which the directory gets created but an exception is thrown before the actual mkdir callback is fired.

So, in cases in which there is an heavy usage of tmp.dir (like twitter's bower), some directories won't get gc.

Would it be possible to push to the _removeObjects array before the actual mkdir? The only thing that needs to be taken care of is that if the mkdir failed, it must be removed from the array.

[raszi]

If I would put the temporary filename before the creation to _removeObjects that would cause a race-condition, because before the temporary file or directory creation another file or directory could be created by any other process in the system.

I want to avoid this. So if the price is to leave some file or directory after an uncatched exception, that's fine for me.

[satazor]

Good point altough likely impossible to happen, specially if a prefix is used. Still, I understand your point