Failing in Rust

A quick talk at a meetup about using failure.

Transcript

1. Failing in Rust Armin @mitsuhiko Ronacher
3. 800°C 36° 2' 0.4662" N 118° 15' 38.7792" W 795°C 789°C 797°C 793°C 805°C 782°C we show you your crashes
4. — Robert F. Kennedy “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
5. Why do we care?
6. Errors are Important • Errors are part of your API • Exceptions let you forget about this easily • A lot more relevant when you can catch them and there are multiple versions of libraries involved
7. ways to fail greatly
8. Mechanisms •Result<T, E> •Option<T> •panic!
9. Result Propagation vs Panic • Results/Options are for handling • panics are for recovering at best
10. Examples of Panics • out of bound access • runtime
11. Examples of Option • safe signalling absence of data • "the one obvious error"
12. — Douglas Adams
13. But when you do •panic!("…"); •unreachable!();
14. let's talk results
15. But if you don't panic … how do you result?
16. fn square_a_number() -> Result<f32, E> { let num = get_a_random_float()?; Ok(num * num) }
17. let val = expr?;
18. let val = match Try::into_result(expr) { Ok(v) => v, Err(e) => return Try::from_error(From::from(e)); };
19. error propagation can be hooked!
20. The Err in Result can be anything :-/
21. So let's use some traits for Err
22. pub trait Error: Debug + Display { fn description(&self) -> &str; fn cause(&self) -> Option<&Error>; }
23. impl Error + 'static { pub fn downcast_ref<T>(&self) -> Option<&T> where T: Error + 'static; }
24. — Charles Darwin “To kill std::error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new trait”
25. Problems • Generic errors give no guarantees • no Send / Sync / Debug • causes() returns non static errors • description() is useless • no backtraces
26. Enter Failure
27. — Winston Churchill “Success consists of going from std::error to failure without loss of enthusiasm”
28. some std errors are fails nice! impl<E> Fail for E where E: StdError + Send + Sync + 'static
29. failure 0.1 ➠ failure 1.0
30. pub trait Fail: Display + Debug + Send + Sync + 'static { fn cause(&self) -> Option<&Fail>; fn backtrace(&self) -> Option<&Backtrace>; fn context<D>(self, context: D) -> Context<D> where D: Display + Send + Sync + 'static, Self: Sized; }
31. Fail can be derived
32. #[derive(Fail, Debug)] #[fail(display = "my failure happened")] pub struct MyFailure;
33. #[derive(Fail, Debug)] #[fail(display = "my failure happened")] pub struct MyFailure { backtrace: failure::Backtrace,
 }
34. #[derive(Fail, Debug)] #[fail(display = "my failure happened")] pub struct MyFailure { backtrace: failure::Backtrace, #[fail(cause)] io_cause: ::std::io::Error,
 }
35. Fail & Error
36. Fail ⟷ Error
37. Fail for libraries Error for applications
38. What's in the Package
39. Main Functionality • Fail trait • Error type • Context
40. Bonus Points • Fail works with no_std • Fail works with many std::errors • error-chain is deprecating itself for failure • actix and others are already using it!
41. — rustc an Error is not a Fail
42. failure 0.1: error.cause() failure 1.0: error.as_fail() Error to &Fail
43. Examples
44. #[derive(Debug, Fail, PartialEq, Eq, PartialOrd, Ord)] #[fail(display = "invalid value for project id")] pub struct ProjectIdParseError; Parse Errors
45. #[derive(Debug, Fail)] pub enum DsnParseError { #[fail(display = "no valid url provided")] InvalidUrl, #[fail(display = "no valid scheme")] InvalidScheme, #[fail(display = "username is empty")] NoUsername, #[fail(display = "no project id")] NoProjectId, #[fail(display = "invalid project id")] InvalidProjectId(#[fail(cause)] ProjectIdParseError), } Complex Parse Errors
46. fn parse(url: Url) -> Result<Dsn, DsnParseError> { let project_id: i64 = url.path() .trim_matches('/') .parse() .map_err(DsnParseError::InvalidProjectId)?; Ok(Dsn { project_id }) } Mapping Errors
47. #[derive(Debug, Fail, Copy, Clone, PartialEq, Eq, Hash)] pub enum ErrorKind { #[fail(display = "governor spawn failed")] TroveGovernSpawnFailed, #[fail(display = "governor shutdown failed")] TroveGovernShutdownFailed, } Error Kinds
48. #[derive(Debug)] pub struct Error { inner: Context<ErrorKind>, } Custom Errors
49. impl Fail for Error { fn cause(&self) -> Option<&Fail> { self.inner.cause() } fn backtrace(&self) -> Option<&Backtrace> { self.inner.backtrace() } } impl fmt::Display for Error { fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter) -> fmt::Result { fmt::Display::fmt(&self.inner, f) } } Error Pass Through
50. pub fn run(config: Config) -> Result<(), Error> { let trove = Arc::new(Trove::new(config)); trove.govern().context(ErrorKind::TroveGovernSpawnFailed)?; // … } Example Usage
51. use failure::{Error, ResultExt}; pub fn attach_logfile(&mut self, logfile: &str) -> Result<(), Error> { let f = fs::File::open(logfile) .context("Could not open logfile")?; let reader = BufReader::new(f); for line in reader.lines() { let line = line?; User Facing with Error
52. A person who never made a mistake never had to write an error API
53. ?