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Description

Errors is an Elixir package that adds debugging context to error reasons. It is meant to be used in the tagged tuple style of error handling, where a function may return {:ok, result} or {:error, reason}.

Monthly Downloads: 43
Programming language: Elixir
License: MIT License

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README

Errors

Errors is an Elixir package that adds debugging context to error reasons. It is meant to be used in the tagged tuple style of error handling, where a function may return {:ok, result} or {:error, reason}.

Motivation

To illustrate why this might be useful, consider the following code snippet that fetches the contents of a file from a GitHub repo:

defmodule HTTP do
  def get(url) do
    HTTPoison.get(url)
  end
end

defmodule GitHub do
  def file({user, repo, file}) do
    HTTP.get("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/#{user}/#{repo}/master/#{file}")
  end
end

defmodule Repo do
  def read(path) do
    GitHub.file({"nucleartide", "errors", path})
  end
end

# iex> Repo.read("notafile.txt")
# ...> {:error, %HTTPoison.Error{id: nil, reason: :closed}}

Here, we see that the Repo.read/1 operation failed, but the error reason isn't particularly helpful. Where does the HTTPoison.Error come from? What was :closed?

This error is even more opaque if Repo.read/1 comes from a third-party library.

Solution

Errors clarifies error reasons by annotating reasons with a message and stack trace. Here's how you would refactor the code above to provide additional debugging context:

defmodule HTTP do
  def get(url) do
    with res = {:ok, _} <- HTTPoison.get(url) do
      res
    else
      {:error, e} -> {:error, Errors.wrap(e, "http request failed")}
    end
  end
end

defmodule GitHub do
  defp url({user, repo, file}) do
    "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/#{user}/#{repo}/master/#{file}"
  end

  def file(github_file) do
    with res = {:ok, _} <- HTTP.get(github_file |> url()) do
      res
    else
      {:error, e} -> {:error, Errors.wrap(e, "couldn't fetch github file")}
    end
  end
end

defmodule Repo do
  def read(path) do
    with res = {:ok, _} <- GitHub.file({"nucleartide", "errors", path}) do
      res
    else
      {:error, e} -> {:error, Errors.wrap(e, "couldn't read from #{path}")}
    end
  end
end

# iex> {:error, err} = Repo.read("notafile.txt")
# ...> {:error, %Errors.WrappedError{...}}

We can print this new Errors.WrappedError to retrieve our annotated messages:

iex> IO.puts(err)
couldn't read from notafile.txt: couldn't fetch github file: http request failed: closed

Or inspect the error for a stack trace:

iex> IO.inspect(err)
** (Errors.WrappedError) couldn't read from notafile.txt
    example.exs:27: HTTP.get/1
** (Errors.WrappedError) couldn't fetch github file
    example.exs:17: GitHub.file/1
** (Errors.WrappedError) http request failed
    example.exs:6: Repo.read/1
** (HTTPoison.Error) closed

Install

Add :errors to your deps in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:errors, "~> 0.1.0"}
  ]
end

API

Errors exposes three primary macros/functions:

Errors.wrap/2

@spec wrap(error :: Exception.t, message :: String.t) :: Macro.t
defmacro wrap(error, message \\ "")

Use Errors.wrap/2 to "wrap" tagged errors received from other functions:

defmodule YourModule do
  require Errors

  def get() do
    with res = {:ok, _} <- HTTPoison.get("https://www.google.com/") do
      res
    else
      {:error, e} -> {:error, Errors.wrap(e, "can't ping google")}
    end
  end
end

Errors.new/1

@spec new(message :: String.t) :: Macro.t
defmacro new(message \\ "")

Use Errors.new/1 as a general replacement for custom Exception structs:

defmodule YourModule do
  require Errors

  def transform("https://" <> rest_of_link),
    do: {:ok, rest_of_link}
  def transform(_),
    do: {:error, Errors.new("missing https:// prefix")}
end

Errors.cause/1

@spec cause(error :: Errors.Cause.t | any) :: Exception.t | any
def cause(error)

Errors.cause/1 returns the unwrapped "cause" of an error.

The passed-in error should implement the Errors.Cause protocol; errors returned by Errors.wrap/2 and Errors.new/1 implement Errors.Cause already:

require Errors

%RuntimeError{message: "this is an error"}
|> Errors.wrap("uh-oh")
|> Errors.cause() # => %RuntimeError{message: "this is an error"}

WrappedError

Errors.wrap/2 and Errors.new/1 return a WrappedError. WrappedError implements the String.Chars and Inspect protocols, so you can freely print and inspect:

e = %RuntimeError{} |> Errors.wrap("uh-oh")
IO.puts(e)    # will print "uh-oh: runtime error"
IO.inspect(e) # will print a stack trace

Hexdocs

See the hexdocs for more details and links to source code.

Feedback, issues, concerns

Please open an issue!

Links


Jason Tu · GitHub @nucleartide · Twitter @nucleartide