I am doing a Mendix training right now. And I have been bugged by a question in the knowledge check for Error Handling part. The question is below
What happens if the same microflows are used, but the error handling on the main microflow is Custom with Rollback and the error handling on the sub-microflow is Custom without Rollback?
And the correct answer is:
The Order, OrderLine, and Log objects are rolled back while the Customer object is committed to the database
The Microflow on questions is :
My understanding is:
When the error in the mainmicroflow happens the Create Order should be rolledback but the Change in Customer should be committed since the main microflow uses Custom with Rollback and in the sub microflow both Orderline and the Log should be committed since the submicroflow uses Custom without Rollback.
Question:
Why is the correct answer The Order, OrderLine, and Log objects are rolled back while the Customer object is committed to the database
Below is Image as proof:
Note I used to work for Mendix on their microflow engine (among others) 3 years ago but many things have changed. It seems you're using a concept that is new to me which is the error event (where you exit your submicroflow) which according to the documentation at https://docs.mendix.com/refguide/error-event rethrows the error caught earlier.
I'm guessing that's why this is happening and would expect the order/orderline/log to be committed if you would exit that submicroflow with a normal end event after handling the error.
Related
I am new to mulesoft and while studing it i strugle to understand why on module "onErrorPropagate" the error is being rethrown after executing the scope.
can you explain the benefits?
An on-error-propagate will rollback any transactions, execute, and use that result to rethrow the existing error––meaning its owner will be considered as “failing.”
The best use is in a layered system, to allow each layer to do its own small part of an error response.
If you are familiar with Java you can think of it as catching the exception and re-throwing it. For example, sometimes you want to do something with the error yourself, but still want to propagate it upwards for higher levels to deal with.
You could add logging in a specific flow for the error but then leave it to the parent flows to actually deal with the exception.
The "onErrorPropagate" propagates (rethrows) the error to the parent flow (or the global error handler if it's already reached the main flow).
This can be usefull in a few cases.
Say you have some flow specific error handling (e.g. if something goes wrong, set a default payload).
Then you propagate this error to the next level where you have your Global error handler that, say, stores some info in a QA database.
You don't want to have that database connector in every single error handler.
In this way you can achieve a 'java inherritance' like structure, for your errors.
Side note: if you want your error to only be handled and do nothing further, you can use "onErrorContinue"
I've watched quite a few videos on YouTube and have a basic understanding of how to find user-exits (enhancements?) and implement them. However when I try to replicate what I've seen it doesn't appear to be working.
I'm looking to create a user-exit that would execute when a production order has been confirmed (closed/finished) via CO11N. Someone suggested that I put in a line of code "BREAK username." So that I could verify that my code was firing. Nothing breaks. I've tried putting in a message from code found on the internet
MESSAGE s208(00) WITH 'TEST'.
No message is shown. I've activated the include and the project. I've tried different exits/includes and no matter what I do, nothing seems to break or show a message.
Is there something simple I'm missing? I've tried CONFPI05 and CONFPM05.
CONFPI05 is for process orders. CONFPM05 is for plant maintenance orders. First you need to check which kind of order you use. I assume you use production orders. You should check User-Exit CONFPP05 than.
Anyway, I would recommend using BAdI WORKORDER_CONFIRM. Within this BAdI there are methods available where you can raise an error message.
From the BAdI documentation:
Note that in the methods, no system messages may be sent. The only
exceptions are the AT_SAVE and AT_CANCEL_CHECK methods. Within these
methods, a system message may be issued, but only if you trigger the
exception ERROR_WITH_MESSAGE (for AT_SAVE method) or NOT_ALLOWED (for
AT_CANCEL_CHECK method) at the same time.
Note also that within the methods, the "commit work" instruction may
not be carried out because this would lead to incorrect data in the
database.
I strongly recommend not to use MESSAGE statement in any User-Exit or BAdI implementation. The MESSAGE statement will implicit call a COMMIT WORK which could cause database inconsistencies (happens very often by the way).
One additional note. You should check using Checkpoint Groups instead of using BREAK-POINT or BREAK username directly.
I checked the documentation:
CONFPI05 to update your own data after saving the confirmation
In another documentation I found another warning:
In this customer enhancement it is strictly forbidden to send error messages or other messages because otherwise there is the danger that data will be inconsistent. SAP cannot be held responsible for this!!
This sounds like changes in update task. By default breakpoints in update task are not enabled.
Should your code be processed after you pushed save?
If yes, what you can try:
Set anywhere a breakpoint. Or try /h during data insertion.
In debug screen activate the update debugging:
Continue the process with F8.
Hopefully you stop at your break-point.
I was wondering if we can some how extend NHiberate to throw an exception if a piece of code attempted to save an object to a database without beginning a transaction? Since beginning a transaction is a requirement for calling Save() to work properly, I can't see a programmer calling Save() without beginning a transaction in the first place.
Solution is not in the exception throwing. It is about keeping us (developers on the project) aware of what and where we are doing
1) Project shared approach. Firstly, explain to the team how the Architecture of application works. All team members should now, that Unit of Work, or Session per Request patterns are in place.
2) The FlushMode. Secondly, explain the concept of the Session object. ISession. Save() or Update() is far away from SQL execute INSERT or UPDATE. What count is the ISession.Flush(). And (based on the first step) we can decide when that Flush() happens.
I would suggest setting the FlushMode to on Commit or None (with explict call). And then, if a team member would like to Execute any write command - one standard place, one common way (used on the project) will guide hin/her.
The call Session.Flush() should/will/must be wrapped in a transaction.
I'm having a discussion with a colleague about when to throw faults and when not to throw faults in a WCF service.
One opinion is, that we only throw faults when the service operation could not do its work due to some error; and something may be in an invalid state because of it. So, some examples:
ValidateMember(string name, string password, string country)
-> would throw a fault if the mandatory parameters are not passed, because the validation itself could not be executed;
-> would throw fault if some internal error occured, like database was down
-> would return a status contract in all other cases, that specifies the result of the validation (MemberValidated, WrongPassword, MemberNotKnown,...)
GetMember(int memberId)
-> would only throw fault if something is down, in all other cases it would return the member or null if not found
The other opinion is that we should also throw faults when GetMember does not find the member, or in the case of ValidateMember the password is wrong.
What do you think?
My take on this...
There are three causes of failure:
The service code threw an exception, e.g. database error, logic error in your code. This is your fault.
The client code failed to use your service properly according to your documentation, e.g. it didn't set a required flag value, it failed to pass in an ID. This is the client software developer's fault.
The end user typed in something silly on screen, e.g. missing date of birth, negative salary. This is the end user's fault.
It's up to you how you choose to map actual fault contracts to each cause of failure. For example, we do this:
For causes 1 and 2, all the client code needs to know is that the service failed. We define a very simple "fatal error" fault contract that contains only a unique error ID. The full details of the error are logged on the server.
For cause 3, the end user needs to know exactly what he/she did wrong. We define a "validation errors" fault contract containing a collection of friendly error messages for the client code to display on screen.
We borrow the Microsoft EntLib class for cause 3, and use exception shielding to handle causes 1 and 2 declaratively. It makes for very simple code.
To Clarify:
We handle the three causes like this inside the service:
An unexpected exception is thrown in the service code. We catch it at the top level (actually exception shielding catches it, but the principle is the same). Log full details, then throw a FaultException<ServiceFault> to the client containing only the error ID.
We validate the input data and deliberately throw an exception. It's normally an ArgumentException, but any appropriate type would do. Once it is thrown, it is dealt with in exactly the same way as (1) because we want to make it appear the same to the client.
We validate the input data and deliberately throw an exception. This time, it's a FaultException<ValidationFault>. We configure exception shielding to pass this one through un-wrapped, so it appears on the client as FaultException<ValidationFault> not FaultException<ServiceFault>.
End result:
No catch blocks at all inside the service (nice clean code).
Client only has to catch FaultException<ValidationFault> if it wants to display messages to the user. All other exception types including FaultException<ServiceFault> are dealt with by the client's global error handler as fatal errors, since a fatal error in the service generally means a fatal error in the client as well.
It it is a common, routine failure, then throwing a fault is a mistake. The software should be written to handle routine items, like entering the wrong password. Fault processing is for exceptional failure which are not considered part of the program's normal design.
For example, if your program was written with the idea that it always has access to a database, and the database is not accessible, that's an issue where the "fix" is well outside of the limits of your software. A fault should be thrown.
Fault processing uses different logical flows through the structure of the programming language, and by using it only when you've "left" the normal processing of the programming problem, you will make your solution leverage the feature of the programming language in a way that seems more natural.
I believe it is good practice to separate error handling and fault handling. Any error case should be dealt by your program - fault handling is reserved for exceptional conditions. As a guide to the separation of the two I found it useful when considering such cases to remember that there are only three types of error (when handling data and messages) and only one type of fault.
The error types are related to different types of validation:
Message validation - you can determine from the message contents that the data is valid or invalid.
Example: content that is intended to be a date of birth - you can tell from the data whether it is valid or not.
Context validation - you can only determine that content is invalid by reference to the message
combined with the system state.
Example: a valid date of joining a company is earlier than that persons date of birth.
Lies to the system - you can only determine that a message was in error when a later message
throws up an anomaly.
Example: Valid date of birth stored and inspection of the person's birth certificate shows this to be incorrect. Correction of lies to the system generally require action outside of the system, for instance invoking legal or disciplinary remedies.
Your system MUST deal with all classes of error - though in case three this may be limited to issuing an alert.
Faults (exceptions) by contrast only have one cause - data corruption (which includes data truncation). Example: validation parameters are not passed.
Here the appropriate mechanism is fault or exception handling - basically handing off the problem to some other part of the system that is capable of dealing with it (which is why there should be an ultimate destination for unhandled faults).
In the old days we used to have a rule that exceptions were only for exceptional and unexpected things. One of the reasons you did not want to use them too much was that they "cost" alot of computing power.
But if you use exceptions you can reduce the amount of code, no need for alot of if else statements, just let the exception bubble up.
It depends on your project. The most important thing is that there is a project standard and everyone does it the same way.
My opinion is that exceptions/fault should be thrown whenever what the method is supposed to do can't be achieved. So validation logic should never raise exception except if the validation can't be made (i.e. for technical reasons) but never just because the data are not valid (in that case it will return validation codes/messages or anything helping the caller to correct the data).
Now the GetMember case is an interesting one because it's all about semantic. The name of the method suggest that a member can be retrieved by passing an id (compare to a TryGetMember method for exemple). Of course the method should not throw the same exception if the id is nowhere to be found or if the database does not respond but a wrong id passed to this method is probably the sign that something is going wrong somewhere before that call. Except if the user can directly enter a member-id from within the interface in which case a validation should occurred before calling the method.
I hear a lot about the performance issue. I just made a simple test using C# and trow/catch 1000 exceptions. The time it took is 23ms for 1K Exeptions. That's 23µ per exception. I think performance is no longer the first argument here except if you plan to raise more than 2000 exception per second in which case you will have a 5% performance down, which I can start considering.
My humble opinion...
Generally, in software design, which of the options below is preferred when there is a problem or error with a resource such as a database or file?
Show an error message
Do not show an error message and act as though the resource was empty (eg. do not populate a GUI component)]
For example, should the user see an empty DataGrid following which they complain, or should there be an error message? Which is better?
I don't see this as an either/or. Also, we need to consider all "users" of the system.
First consider the UI. Let's consider a contrived general case: you are populating a UI by calling a service which in turn uses a couple of of databases (for example a "current data" and an "historic data") database.
There are at least these possibilities:
It all works, data is retrieved
It all works but as it happens there's no data for this particular query
Can't reach the service
Service is invoked, but one database is down
Service is invoked, but both databases are down
Then also consider your application's semantics. Can your applciation procede in a "degraded" mode if all the data cannot be retrieved? For example, we can't query the history but that doesn't stop us creating a new item.,
Now also consider the roles here. There's the person using the UI, there's also support and maintenance people who need to know about and fix problems.
My general rules:
First Failure Data capture: Whichever component first detects an error should log it in some detail. So, service up, database down the service should log the problem. Service down, the UI should log the problem. This log should be a technical record targeting the support roles.
UIs should be tolerant: if at all possible run in a degraded mode. So if the service is down but (for example) local working is possible put up an empty screen and continue. BUT ...
Always indicate a problem: The "no data for this query" and "databases unavailable" cases may both result in an empty screen. The user needs to know the status of the display, is it showing complete information, partial information (eg. because one DB is down) or is no information available (eg. service or both dbs down). So have a "Status" field somewhere on the screen. Giving messages such as
Historica Data not currently available
or
There are problems retrieveing
information, if these persist please
contact support ...
There are some pitfalls to each of the options
Showing error message
This is specially helpful when your application is in testing stage or public testing. Also when clients meets an error, he or she can copy down the details and forward to you.
However sometimes this error message gets very ugly (call stacks and so on - remember ASP.NET?) and it becomes so large that it becomes difficult for clients to copy down the details.
Do not show error message and act as though nothing happened =)
This is useful when you don't want error messages to cog up your software UI design. But be reminded that it becomes difficult and further error prone when clients can't differentiate between an actual error, or really nothing on the GUI. The error stays there and nothing gets fixed.
My stand
Get the best of both worlds. In fact most modern applications how have a very good error handling process. I'll take the example of Mozilla Firefox 3.
A deadly error occurred and Firefox crashes
Error is captured and stored into a file as a form of error report
Error Reporting Application pops up apologizing to the user
Ask the user if the user want to send the error report to the software dev team
Then ask the user if want to restart the application
Or if the error is a warning or of lesser severity:
Show a simple error code and tell the user that there's the error with that action. Something like: "Error 123 at RequestSalary() Line 2"
The practice I usualy use is:
If the error didn't happen due to user error, then you should try to handle the error quietly.
If the error occurred because of some external problem (such as no internet connection) then you should alert the user.
IMO you should show a message (albeit a user friendly one and not something like "java.io.IOException: Connection timed out".) You could have a message box telling the user that an error occured while getting the data and provide helpful tips like: Trying after some time, check network cable, etc.
Also allow user to report that error to you (error reporting build into the app) that will send you the actual error and stack trace.