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cart opened this issue Feb 28, 2025 · 0 comments · Fixed by #18144
Closed

Bevy's Error type should capture a useful backtrace #18092

cart opened this issue Feb 28, 2025 · 0 comments · Fixed by #18144
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A-ECS Entities, components, systems, and events C-Usability A targeted quality-of-life change that makes Bevy easier to use S-Ready-For-Implementation This issue is ready for an implementation PR. Go for it!
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cart commented Feb 28, 2025

As mentioned in #14275 and #17273, Bevy needs to output useful backtraces when its systems fail. Currently, it fails with a backtrace captured at the error handling site not where the error occurs. We need to use the From-conversion anyhow-style backtrace capture for our error type, either by using anyhow directly or by implementing it ourselves.

@cart cart added A-ECS Entities, components, systems, and events C-Usability A targeted quality-of-life change that makes Bevy easier to use labels Feb 28, 2025
@cart cart added this to the 0.16 milestone Feb 28, 2025
@alice-i-cecile alice-i-cecile added the S-Ready-For-Implementation This issue is ready for an implementation PR. Go for it! label Feb 28, 2025
@cart cart self-assigned this Feb 28, 2025
github-merge-queue bot pushed a commit that referenced this issue Mar 7, 2025
## Objective

Fixes #18092

Bevy's current error type is a simple type alias for `Box<dyn Error +
Send + Sync + 'static>`. This largely works as a catch-all error, but it
is missing a critical feature: the ability to capture a backtrace at the
point that the error occurs. The best way to do this is `anyhow`-style
error handling: a new error type that takes advantage of the fact that
the `?` `From` conversion happens "inline" to capture the backtrace at
the point of the error.

## Solution

This PR adds a new `BevyError` type (replacing our old
`std::error::Error` type alias), which uses the "from conversion
backtrace capture" approach:

```rust
fn oh_no() -> Result<(), BevyError> {
    // this fails with Rust's built in ParseIntError, which
    // is converted into the catch-all BevyError type
    let number: usize = "hi".parse()?;
    println!("parsed {number}");
    Ok(())
}
```

This also updates our exported `Result` type alias to default to
`BevyError`, meaning you can write this instead:

```rust
fn oh_no() -> Result {
    let number: usize = "hi".parse()?;
    println!("parsed {number}");
    Ok(())
}
```

When a BevyError is encountered in a system, it will use Bevy's default
system error handler (which panics by default). BevyError does custom
"backtrace filtering" by default, meaning we can cut out the _massive_
amount of "rust internals", "async executor internals", and "bevy system
scheduler internals" that show up in backtraces. It also trims out the
first generally-unnecssary `From` conversion backtrace lines that make
it harder to locate the real error location. The result is a blissfully
simple backtrace by default:


![image](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7a5f5c9b-ea70-4176-af3b-d231da31c967)

The full backtrace can be shown by setting the `BEVY_BACKTRACE=full`
environment variable. Non-BevyError panics still use the default Rust
backtrace behavior.

One issue that prevented the truly noise-free backtrace during panics
that you see above is that Rust's default panic handler will print the
unfiltered (and largely unhelpful real-panic-point) backtrace by
default, in _addition_ to our filtered BevyError backtrace (with the
helpful backtrace origin) that we capture and print. To resolve this, I
have extended Bevy's existing PanicHandlerPlugin to wrap the default
panic handler. If we panic from the result of a BevyError, we will skip
the default "print full backtrace" panic handler. This behavior can be
enabled and disabled using the new `error_panic_hook` cargo feature in
`bevy_app` (which is enabled by default).

One downside to _not_ using `Box<dyn Error>` directly is that we can no
longer take advantage of the built-in `Into` impl for strings to errors.
To resolve this, I have added the following:

```rust
// Before
Err("some error")?

// After
Err(BevyError::message("some error"))?
```

We can discuss adding shorthand methods or macros for this (similar to
anyhow's `anyhow!("some error")` macro), but I'd prefer to discuss that
later.

I have also added the following extension method:

```rust
// Before
some_option.ok_or("some error")?;

// After
some_option.ok_or_message("some error")?;
```

I've also moved all of our existing error infrastructure from
`bevy_ecs::result` to `bevy_ecs::error`, as I think that is the better
home for it

## Why not anyhow (or eyre)?

The biggest reason is that `anyhow` needs to be a "generically useful
error type", whereas Bevy is a much narrower scope. By using our own
error, we can be significantly more opinionated. For example, anyhow
doesn't do the extensive (and invasive) backtrace filtering that
BevyError does because it can't operate on Bevy-specific context, and
needs to be generically useful.

Bevy also has a lot of operational context (ex: system info) that could
be useful to attach to errors. If we have control over the error type,
we can add whatever context we want to in a structured way. This could
be increasingly useful as we add more visual / interactive error
handling tools and editor integrations.

Additionally, the core approach used is simple and requires almost no
code. anyhow clocks in at ~2500 lines of code, but the impl here uses
160. We are able to boil this down to exactly what we need, and by doing
so we improve our compile times and the understandability of our code.
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