| --- |
| layout: default |
| title: Precise Error Reporting |
| parent: |
| title: Contributors Guide |
| url: index.html |
| --- |
| |
| # Precise Error Reporting |
| {:.no_toc} |
| |
| * Will be replaced with the ToC, excluding a header |
| {:toc} |
| |
| With the multiple levels of configuration, constant overrides, and bean selection, it can be confusing as to how |
| the framework is configured and how it got there. To assist debugging and provide the ability to continue to provide |
| more line-precise error reporting, the configuration loader remembers the location of not only XML elements, |
| but also Java Properties file properties. |
| |
| How it works is instead of storing configuration properties in a plain `java.util.Properties` object, we have a special |
| `LocatableProperties` class. This class leverages the location classes to store location information for the whole |
| properties file but also individual properties. We use this to gather configuration properties during configuration loading. |
| This will allow us to display at any given point the location of each property setting. This capability should be very |
| useful when trying to determine what XML or Properties file overwrote what and when. |
| |
| Interestingly, in addition to remembering the URI and line number of Properties properties, the parser we "borrowed" |
| from Commons Configuration even gathers preceding comments, which are also stored in the Location object. This means |
| we can leverage the Properties comment-based documentation that we have in the o.a.s.default.properties file |
| or the user's struts.properties file to further provide useful information in error reports. |
| |
| There are some very interesting possibilities here to increase the transparency of the framework in error and debugging conditions. |
