[augeas-devel] Error reporting API

[Bryan Kearney]

David:

I am updating the java bindings. Should I still us the return value to 
determine if the call was successul, or use this new method api?

-- bk

On 09/21/2009 08:48 PM, David Lutterkort wrote:
> This change has been long overdue: API functions to inquire about errors
> and details about them. The function aug_error can be used to get an error
> code for whatever error made the last aug_* fail.
>
> This functionality is now used by augtool to print error messages, for
> example,
>
>      augtool>  print "/*[1 = 'foo']"
>      error: Invalid path expression
>      error: type error
>      error: /*[1 = 'foo']
>
> That's a lot friendlier than typing 'print /augeas//error' all the
> time. The main advantage though is that Augeas is easier to use as a
> library now, since you can use the result of aug_error to see if a call
> failed because of an invalid path expression (probably a bug in your
> program) or because of a failed malloc.
>
> There's still a lot to be done to make error reporting perfect, but this is
> a decent start.
>
> Note that some calls will always return success even if some aspect of them
> failed. For example, aug_load will tell you it succeeded even if some files
> could not be loaded - that's necessary both for API compatibility, and
> makes good sense. For analyzing the result of aug_load, you still have to
> look at /augeas/files//error.
>
> One thing I am debating with myself is if the API should implicitly do an
> 'rm /augeas//error' for every call. IOW, error nodes would only stick
> around up until the next call to a aug_* function. The current behavior
> (they stick around until the user removes them) seems to make the API
> harder to use than it has to be.
>
> David
>
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