Mongoose catches runaway Pythons

New Mongoose package now available:

Provides a graceful exit and report when an uncaught Python exception occurs in deployed production or beta software.
Catches and reports otherwise unhandled Python exceptions in a helpful and extensible manner.
Automatically generates an unique Mongoose Incident Identifier(TM) to help you track the same bug across multiple computers.

License: LGPL

Read more about Mongoose below or download and try Mongoose today:

Download URL: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=77296

Email: opensource@notanothercorporation.com

Basic usage example

  import mongoose
  from mongoose.reporters import FileLogReporter

  mongoose.start()
  mongoose.registerReporter(FileLogReporter('mongoose.log'))
  mongoose.setSessionInfo('your_app_version', '1.0')
  # < ... your code here ... >
  mongoose.stop()

Mongoose Reporters

Mongoose replaces the default system exception handler so one or more "reporters" can act in response to an uncaught exception. Supplied sample reporters can:

Log the event to a file
Email the developer or support staff
Display output on a console
Display a wxWindows dialog to the user

Mongoose Incident Identifiers

Mongoose Incident Identifier technology provides developers with a convenient way to track the same exceptional incident (i.e. "bug") across multiple computers. A Mongoose Incident Identifier is an automatically generated unique identifier that will be the same on any computer which encounters the problem. (Similar to Full Circle Software's TalkBack ID and Bugtoaster's Crash Signature.)

Sample reporter output

ConsoleReporter

    This program has encountered a problem that means it can not continue.
    
    Please contact your technical support provider, system
    administrator or the vendor of this software and ask them for
    assistance.
    
    Mongoose Incident Identifier: 89662

FileLogReporter (Long format)

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mon Mar  3 15:50:23 2003	89662	exceptions.Exception	Dummy Exception
    
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "mongoose/reporters.py", line 491, in ?
        raise Exception("Dummy Exception")
    Exception: Dummy Exception
    
    info one: Stuff
    info two: A value
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

EmailReporter

    From: mongoose@example.com
    To: developer@example.com
    Subject: Mongoose Incident Report
    X-Mongoose-Id: 89662
    Date: Mon,  3 Mar 2003 15:50:23 -0800 (PST)
    
    (This is an optional message prologue.)
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mon Mar  3 15:50:23 2003	89662	exceptions.Exception	Dummy Exception
    
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "mongoose/reporters.py", line 491, in ?
        raise Exception("Dummy Exception")
    Exception: Dummy Exception
    
    info one: Stuff
    info two: A value
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

GuiReporter

More about "Mongoose Incident Identifiers"

The following is an example MII:

89662

Exciting, huh?

Why is a Mongoose Incident Identifier good for users?

A MII gives the user a single, small and easy to remember piece of information to identify their problem. They can then search the vendor's support database or talk to support personnel about it.

Why is a Mongoose Incident Identifier good for support staff?

The MII for any particular incident is the same for all computers the software is installed on. A MII helps support staff determine whether a bug has been seen before, and find out if there are known solutions or work-arounds for it.

Why is a Mongoose Incident Identifier good for developers?

Helps to determine how bugs should be prioritized by noting the relative frequency of each MII.
Provides a convenient method of conveying information from the user to the developer about particular bugs. Once a bug has an MII associated with it the developer can also link the logged traceback (including custom session information) and other information to it.

Read more about Mongoose below or download and try Mongoose today:

Download URL: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=77296

Email: opensource@notanothercorporation.com

Other Limitations

We're not gonna catch a segfault, okay? (That belongs in the realm of a non-Python specific Open Source/Free Software implementation of this functionality.)

Utility modules

runall.py
Executes all the unit tests found in the 'test' directory. Can be used to do this in your packages too.

test/extunit.py
A special type of unit test class that allows us to unit test functionality that would otherwise disrupt or be disrupted by the standard Python unittest framework. This is how we unit test our replacement system exception handler (otherwise the unit test framework would catch all the uncaught exceptions). This can be used in your own test suites also--it's internally documented, but the documentation probably needs elaboration.

How is a Mongoose Incident Identifier generated?

This is the implementation specific, technical bit, you don't need to know this to use MIIs, and you shouldn't rely on the exact method of generating MIIs in the current implementation either.

At present a MII is generated by extracting function names from the traceback of the uncaught exception and concatenating them into a string, getting a hash for that string and then using the value of the hash modulo 10000.

This method has some pros and cons:

Pros

The MII for an incident is constant between different versions of the software if the error should (heaven forbid) not be fixed in a newer version. If a source file is edited, insertion or deletion of lines doesn't affect the MII generated.
The MII is a small value, easy to remember or record.

Cons

The MII may *not* actually be unique (I). The finest granularity a MII can refer to is the function level. This means that if the last function in a particular function call path can generate two uncaught exceptions they will both have the same MII. The actual line number of the exception in the logged traceback will highlight this.
The MII may *not* actually be unique (II). There is a chance that the same MII may refer to two different incidents by virtue of the fact that the hash for a particular sequence of function paths could be the same, or the fact that there are only 100,000 possible MII due to our use of modulo. But as this is an edge case (same hash for different sequence of function calls or modulo 100,000 clashing) of an edge case (uncaught exception) I don't think it's a big issue.

It is possible for an MII to have an extended form but this is not currently implemented. An MII in extended form looks like:

501-89662-72

where the first number is the software release version, the second number the simple MII and the last number the line number (possibly modulo 100) of the file where the exception occurred. This form reduces the likelihood of a MII clash caused by two different exceptions in one function. If there is sufficient demand for this form it may be added.

Download and try Mongoose today:

Download URL: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=77296

Email: opensource@notanothercorporation.com

Mongoose catches runaway Pythons

Basic usage example

Mongoose Reporters

Mongoose Incident Identifiers

Sample reporter output

ConsoleReporter

FileLogReporter (Long format)

EmailReporter

GuiReporter

More about "Mongoose Incident Identifiers"

Why is a Mongoose Incident Identifier good for users?

Why is a Mongoose Incident Identifier good for support staff?

Why is a Mongoose Incident Identifier good for developers?

More documentation

Other Limitations

Utility modules

How is a Mongoose Incident Identifier generated?

Pros

Cons