ti-longjohn
v0.0.5
Published
Longjohn rewrite for Titanium
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ti-longjohn
Long stack traces for Titanium with configurable call trace length.
This module is a port and partially rewrite of the Node.js longjohn for the Titanium platform.
In addition it has special support to patch async.js's queue
.
Requirements
Supports
- iOS simulator and device
- Android is untested, probably will not work because Titanium's Android support is based on V8, not JavaScriptCore.
Installation
Download the latest release via git from github:
git clone https://github.com/sttts/ti-longjohn.git
or use gittio:
gittio install ti-longjohn
or use npm:
npm install ti-longjohn
Usage
To use ti-longjohn, require it in your code (probably in some initialization code). That's all!
if (Ti.App.deployType !== 'production') {
var longjohn = require('longjohn')(global);
}
// ... your code
where global
is the global namespace. If you require ti-longjohn
from the
app.js
file, pass this
as the global parameter.
Output
When an exception is thrown, ti-longjohn will try to construct a long stack trace which can consist of multiple usual stack traces which are seperated by asyncronous callbacks, e.g. by setTimeout
.
The output looks like this:
"TypeError at node_modules/nedb/lib/model.js:31",
"#0 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/datastore.js:296",
"#1 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/datastore.js:528",
"#2 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/cursor.js:174",
"#3 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/datastore.js:530",
"#4 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:582",
"#5 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:498",
"#8 () at node_modules/process/index.js:14",
"-------- process.nextTick ---------",
"#2 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:499",
"#3 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:503",
"#4 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/datastore.js:564",
"#5 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/executor.js:40",
"#8 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:731",
"#9 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:728",
"#10 () at node_modules/nedb/node_modules/async/lib/async.js:24",
"#13 () at node_modules/process/index.js:14",
"-------- async.queue.push ---------",
"#1 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/executor.js:56",
"#2 () at node_modules/nedb/lib/datastore.js:568",
"#3 () at models/thread.js:1687",
"#4 () at lib/async.js:122"
To get a stack trace, ti-longjohn uses the err.backtrace
property of an
Error
object thrown during an exception. It seems that JavaScriptCore in Titanium is not very verbose about function names (hence, the empty ()
in the stack traces).
Moreover, it cannot be guaranteed by ti-longjohn
that the stack traces are always complete.
Use in production
During execution of JavaScript code, ti-longjohn will keep a linked list of error objects in memory, each keeping a stack trace up to an async callback.
Moreover, in order to get a stack trace, a try/catch
block is used which is known to be bad for performance.
For these reason it is not recommended to have ti-longjohn activated in production.
Limit traced async calls
longjohn.async_trace_limit = 5; // defaults to 10
longjohn.async_trace_limit = -1; // unlimited
Patching async.js
The queue mechanism in async.js breaks the stack trace chain that ti-longjohn tries to build and which it prints on error.
There is special support to patch the async.js queue in such a way that proper long stack traces are created:
var longjohn = require('ti-longjohn')(global);
longjohn.patch_async(require('async'));
Then the code
var q = async.queue(function (x) {
i.do.not.exist = x;
});
q.push(42, function done() {
Ti.API.info('done');
});
will lead to a long stack trace:
"TypeError at app.js:19",
"#2 () at node_modules/async/lib/async.js:809",
"#5 () at node_modules/process/index.js:14",
"-------- async.queue.push ---------",
"#1 () at app.js:23"