From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2004-11-07T12:38:13+09:00
Subject: exception extensions


These are some extensions to Exception that I've found useful recently. 
Maybe someone else will too.

The #details method outputs something like what ruby itself does when 
you see an exception in stderr. However, it returns a string, and you 
can control the threshold for removing informative lines with '...'. 
Also, the output is formatted more nicely, IMO.

The #reraise_as method is useful when you want to catch something that's 
fairly opaque, like NameError, or NoMethodErr, and, using a more 
descriptive and app-specific exception class, raise it again, but with 
the same backtrace.

Some example code is included.

class Exception
   # More or less reproduces ruby's default exception reporting in
   # the returned string, except truncation can be controlled with
   # +maxlines+: +nil+ means no limit, an integer value means at
   # most <tt>maxlines/2</tt> frames from each of the top and bottom
   # of the stack are reported.
   def details(maxlines=nil)
     bt = backtrace.dup
     bt0 = bt.shift
     if maxlines and maxlines < bt.size
       ml, r = maxlines.divmod(2)
       bt = bt[0...ml+r] + ["..."] + bt[-(ml==0 ? 1 : ml)..-1]
     end
     [
       "#{bt0}: #{self.class}:",
       message,
       "        from " + bt.join("\n        from ")
     ].join("\n")
   end

   # Raise the exception, preserving the backtrace, but with as an
   # instance of class +cl+. The message is preserved by default,
   # but may be set to +msg+.
   def reraise_as(cl, msg = message)
     e = cl.new(msg)
     e.set_backtrace backtrace
     raise e
   end
end


class FooError < StandardError; end

def foo
   bar(10)
rescue StandardError => e
   puts e.details(5)
   puts "*"*40
   e.reraise_as(FooError)
end

def bar(try)
   if try <= 0
     raise "  bar problem:\n    can't find a bar\n    anywhere around here"
   else
     bar(try-1)
   end
end

foo

EXAMPLE OUTPUT:

reraise.rb:43:in `bar': RuntimeError:
   bar problem:
     can't find a bar
     anywhere around here
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from ...
         from reraise.rb:34:in `foo'
         from reraise.rb:49
****************************************
reraise.rb:43:in `bar':   bar problem: (FooError)
     can't find a bar
     anywhere around here        from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:45:in `bar'
         from reraise.rb:34:in `foo'
         from reraise.rb:49