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Show HN: Error return traces for Go, inspired by Zig

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Re: Show HN: Error return traces for Go, inspired by Zig

#6

Post by abhinavg »

Eun wrote: post #4

Can you explain why we should this over https://github.com/pkg/errors ?

The README covers the idea behind errtrace in more details, but the primary difference is in what is captured:

pkg/errors captures a stack trace of when the error occurred, and attaches it to the error. This information doesn't change as the error moves through the program.

errtrace captures a 'return trace'--every 'return' statement that the error passes through. This information is appended to at each return site.

This gives you a different view of the code path: the stack trace is the path that led to the error, while the return trace is the path that the error took to get to the user.

The difference is significant because in Go, errors are just plain values that you can store in a struct, pass between goroutines etc. When the error passes to another goroutine, the stack trace from the original goroutine can become less useful in debugging the root cause of the error.

As an example, the Try it out section (https://github.com/bracesdev/errtrace/#try-it-out) in the README includes an example of a semi-realistic program comparing the stack trace and the return trace for the same failure.

Re: Show HN: Error return traces for Go, inspired by Zig

#7

Post by Groxx »

Eun wrote: post #4

Can you explain why we should this over https://github.com/pkg/errors ?

At the very least:

>This repository has been archived by the owner on Dec 1, 2021. It is now read-only.

It's largely complete so it is essentially fine at the moment, but it won't be adapted to future language or community changes. A future landmine.

Re: Show HN: Error return traces for Go, inspired by Zig

#9

Post by oefrha »

Groxx wrote: post #7
Eun wrote: post #4

Can you explain why we should this over https://github.com/pkg/errors ?

At the very least: > This repository has been archived by the owner on Dec 1, 2021. It is now read-only. It's largely complete so it is essentially fine at the moment, but it won't be adapted to future language or community changes. A future landmine.

It’s archived mainly because it’s been superseded by fmt.Errorf() with the %w directive. Go 1.20 also introduced errors.Join() and multi-%w which github.com/pkg/errors lack, so using for green field projects is very ill-advised.
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