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-rw-r--r--system/doc/reference_manual/errors.xml55
1 files changed, 47 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/system/doc/reference_manual/errors.xml b/system/doc/reference_manual/errors.xml
index e764cf431f..16d3e7590e 100644
--- a/system/doc/reference_manual/errors.xml
+++ b/system/doc/reference_manual/errors.xml
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
<chapter>
<header>
<copyright>
- <year>2003</year><year>2015</year>
+ <year>2003</year><year>2017</year>
<holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
</copyright>
<legalnotice>
@@ -49,8 +49,7 @@
The Erlang programming language has built-in features for
handling of run-time errors.</p>
<p>A run-time error can also be emulated by calling
- <c>erlang:error(Reason)</c> or <c>erlang:error(Reason, Args)</c>
- (those appeared in Erlang 5.4/OTP-R10).</p>
+ <c>erlang:error(Reason)</c> or <c>erlang:error(Reason, Args)</c>.</p>
<p>A run-time error is another name for an exception
of class <c>error</c>.
</p>
@@ -79,7 +78,6 @@
<p>Exceptions are run-time errors or generated errors and
are of three different classes, with different origins. The
<seealso marker="expressions#try">try</seealso> expression
- (new in Erlang 5.4/OTP R10B)
can distinguish between the different classes, whereas the
<seealso marker="expressions#catch">catch</seealso>
expression cannot. They are described in
@@ -94,7 +92,7 @@
<cell align="left" valign="middle"><c>error</c></cell>
<cell align="left" valign="middle">Run-time error,
for example, <c>1+a</c>, or the process called
- <c>erlang:error/1,2</c> (new in Erlang 5.4/OTP R10B)</cell>
+ <c>erlang:error/1,2</c></cell>
</row>
<row>
<cell align="left" valign="middle"><c>exit</c></cell>
@@ -110,14 +108,55 @@
(see <seealso marker="#exit_reasons">Exit Reason</seealso>),
and a stack trace (which aids in finding the code location of
the exception).</p>
- <p>The stack trace can be retrieved using
- <c>erlang:get_stacktrace/0</c> (new in Erlang 5.4/OTP R10B)
- from within a <c>try</c> expression, and is returned for
+ <p>The stack trace can be be bound to a variable from within
+ a <c>try</c> expression, and is returned for
exceptions of class <c>error</c> from a <c>catch</c> expression.</p>
<p>An exception of class <c>error</c> is also known as a run-time
error.</p>
+
+ <section>
+ <title>The call-stack back trace (stacktrace)</title>
+ <p>The stack back-trace (<em>stacktrace</em>) is a list of
+ <c>{Module,Function,Arity,Location}</c>
+ tuples. The field <c>Arity</c> in the first tuple can be the
+ argument list of that function call instead of an arity integer,
+ depending on the exception.</p>
+
+ <p><c>Location</c> is a (possibly empty) list of two-tuples
+ that can indicate the location in the source code of the
+ function. The first element is an atom describing the type of
+ information in the second element. The following items can
+ occur:</p>
+ <taglist>
+ <tag><c>file</c></tag>
+ <item>The second element of the tuple is a string (list of
+ characters) representing the filename of the source file
+ of the function.
+ </item>
+ <tag><c>line</c></tag>
+ <item>The second element of the tuple is the line number
+ (an integer &gt; 0) in the source file
+ where the exception occurred or the function was called.
+ </item>
+ </taglist>
+ <warning><p>Developers should rely on stacktrace entries only for
+ debugging purposes.</p>
+ <p>The VM performs tail call optimization, which
+ does not add new entries to the stacktrace, and also limits stacktraces
+ to a certain depth. Furthermore, compiler options, optimizations and
+ future changes may add or remove stacktrace entries, causing any code
+ that expects the stacktrace to be in a certain order or contain specific
+ items to fail.</p>
+ <p>The only exception to this rule is the class <c>error</c> with the
+ reason <c>undef</c> which is guaranteed to include the <c>Module</c>,
+ <c>Function</c> and <c>Arity</c> of the attempted
+ function as the first stacktrace entry.</p>
+ </warning>
+ </section>
+
</section>
+
<section>
<title>Handling of Run-time Errors in Erlang</title>