developer.rteReports
From autoplot.org
Purpose: Describe RTE reporting.
Contents |
1. Introduction
RTE (Runtime Exception) reporting has proved a very effective way to maintain Autoplot. When users hit a runtime exception, they can submit a report that provides Autoplot developers with information about the error.
2. How is the report generated
The RTE report is an XML document that is uploaded to a server, which is presently http://papco.org/RTEReceiver/LargeUpload.jsp. Some servers don't allow posts, so the user may save the report to a file that is sent via email.
3. What is recorded
- applicationId= autoplot
- user comments, which are free text entered by the user to describe the bug.
- userName, guessed from java properties
- email, if the user provides
- the current URI autoplot has in the focus bar
- buildinfos, which are tags that can be used to recover the source. (Not tested.)
- platform info, including: java.version, java,vendor, os.name, os.arch, os.version, runtime.freeMemory, etc.
- exception that raised the dialog, including the stack trace
- .vap file of the current state
- states, which are undo information showing how they got there
- screenshot, optional.
4. How to use this report
4.1. get the screenshot
The screenshot is encoded with uuencode, and the command uudeview is useful:
unix> uudeview rte_0751346092_20120808_212159_usern.xml Loaded from rte_0751346092_20120808_212159_usern.xml: (UNKNOWN.001): part -1 Base64 Found 'UNKNOWN.001' State 16 Base64 Parts 1 OK unix> mv UNKNOWN.001 UNKNOWN.001.png unix> eog UNKNOWN.001.png
4.2. load the vap
The vap file within the report can be loaded by renamimg the exception report and loading it:
unix> cp rte_0751346092_20120808_212159_usern.xml rte_0751346092_20120808_212159_usern.xml.vap
and then in autoplot load this vap. This works because the vap-loading code looks for exception report files and handles them specially. Also you can prefix the URL with "vapfile:" to force load of a resource as a vap file.