Rails 4 Ignore Error/Exception and Continue - ruby

Sorry if it's an easy question, I am pretty new to Ruby.
When users sign up, or login I would like to keep statistics with Redis
def create
#user = User.new(user_params)
if #user.save
$redis.hincrby("2016MMDD", "new_users", 1)
render json: #user
end
end
If for any reason $redis.hincrby fails, is there a way to continue the execution of the code and render the user anyway?

Sure, just wrap the risky code in a begin/rescue/end block that captures the issue and continues execution.
http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/ruby_exceptions.html. - see handling exceptions.
You might want to research what exceptions to look for, say if redis has gone away, rather than the base Exception catch

Related

Mocking a Browser for RSpec, Without Test Doubles Leaking

I find mocking things with RSpec to be entirely problematic and I often don't know how much code to include, in terms of it being diagnostic. So I'll start with the situation I have and the code that I've isolated as causing the problem.
I have tests where I need to mock a browser. I have a mock driver I set up like this:
require "watir"
def mock_driver
browser = double("watir")
allow(browser).to receive(:is_a?).with(Watir::Browser).and_return(true)
allow(browser).to receive(:driver).and_return(true)
browser
end
The only problems I have in my test suite are these two tests:
context "an empiric driver is requested" do
it "a watir browser is provided" do
allow(Watir::Browser).to receive(:new).and_return(Empiric.browser)
Empiric.set_browser mock_driver
end
it "the requested watir browser can be shut down" do
#allow(Empiric.browser).to receive(:quit)
Empiric.quit_browser
#allow(mock_browser).to receive(:new).and_return(Empiric.browser)
#Empiric.set_browser mock_driver
end
end
(The commented out bits in the second test are on purpose to illustrate what's going on.)
With that one line in place in the second test, I get the following error on that test:
<Double "watir"> was originally created in one example but has leaked into another
example and can no longer be used. rspec-mocks' doubles are designed to only last for
one example, and you need to create a new one in each example you wish to use it for.
If I entirely comment out the first test above, that error doesn't happen so I know I've isolated the two tests that are interacting with each other.
Okay, now notice the final line of my second test that is commented out. That seems to be what the error is indicating to me. It's saying I need to create a new double in the other. Okay, so I'll change my last test:
it "the requested watir browser can be shut down" do
#allow(Empiric.browser).to receive(:quit)
Empiric.quit_browser
#allow(mock_browser).to receive(:new).and_return(Empiric.browser)
Empiric.set_browser mock_driver
end
So here I've uncommented the last line so I'm establishing the mock_driver in that test and not allowing the code to leak.
That, however, returns exactly the same error on exactly the same test.
I'm not sure if it would help to see the methods that are being called in that test, but here they are. First is set_browser:
def set_browser(app = :chrome, *args)
#browser = Watir::Browser.new(app, *args)
Empiric.browser = #browser
end
And here is quit_browser:
def quit_browser
#browser.quit
end
The fact that RSpec thought one test was "leaking" into the other made me think that perhaps my #browser instance was the problem, essentially being what's persisting between the two tests. But I don't see how to get around that. I thought that maybe if I quit the browser in the first test, that would help. So I changed the first test to this:
it "a watir browser is provided" do
Empiric.quit_browser
allow(Watir::Browser).to receive(:new).and_return(Empiric.browser)
Empiric.start_browser mock_driver
end
That, however, led to the above error being shown on both tests now.
My more likely accurate guess is that I simply don't know how to provide a mock in this context.
I think you have to use allow with the mock and not Watir::Browser.
For example, what happens if you allow the mock browser to receive whatever calls the browser would and have the it return the mock browser?
Right now you're allowing the "Watir::Browser" to receive those messages and that's returning an "Empiric.browser". Looking at your code, I understand why you put that in there but I think that might be what's screwing you up here.
Mocks in RSpec are horrible things that rarely if ever work correctly in situations like this. I would entirely recommend not using the mock_driver that you have set up. Rather, for each of your tests just do something similar to what you are doing in the mock_driver. My guess is you're including the mock driver as part of a shared context and that, too, is another thing that is very fragile in RSpec. Not recommended.
Instead you might want to use contexts to break up your tests. Then for each context block have a before block. I'm not sure if you should use before:all or before:each given that you're simulating a browser. But that way you can set up the browser in the before and tear it down in an after.
But I would recommend getting it working in each test individually first. Even if it's a lot of code duplication. Then once all tests are passing, refactor to put the browser stuff in those before/after blocks.
But, again, don't use mocks. Don't use shared contexts. It never ends well and honestly it makes your tests harder to reason about.
Given some advice from Micah, I wanted to provide an answer with a solution. I ended up doing this:
context "an empiric driver is requested" do
it "a watir browser is provided" do
allow(Watir::Browser).to receive(:new).and_return(Empiric.browser)
allow(Empiric.browser).to receive(:driver).and_return(true)
expect { Empiric.start_browser :some_browser }.not_to raise_error
end
it "the requested watir browser can be shut down" do
allow(Empiric.browser).to receive(:quit)
allow(Watir::Browser).to receive(:new).and_return(Empiric.browser)
allow(Empiric.browser).to receive(:driver).and_return(true)
expect { Empiric.quit_browser }.not_to raise_error
end
end
All of that was needed as it is or I would get some error or other. I removed my mock driver and, per Micah's suggestion, simply tried to incorporate what seemed to work. The above "contraption" is what I ended up with as the sweet spot.
This works in the sense of giving coverage of the methods in question. What was interesting was that I had to add this to my RSpec configuration:
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.mock_with :rspec do |mocks|
mocks.allow_message_expectations_on_nil = true
end
end
I needed to do this because RSpec was reporting that I was calling allowing something that was nil to receive a value.
This brought up some interesting things, if you think about it. I have a test that is clearly passing. And it adds to my code coverage. But is it actually testing the quit action on a browser? Well, not really since it was testing a quit action on something that it thought was nil.
But -- it does work. And it must be calling the lines of code in question because the code coverage, as reported my SimpleCov, indicates that the statements in question have been checked.

Rails: Flash messages doesn't clear until it is read/accessed

I set the flash message as below in one of my routes
def signup
flash[:is_signup] = true
... redirect_to route1 : route2 // based on some logic, redirect accordingly
end
def route1
// access flash[:is_signup]
flash.discard(:is_signup)
// do something
end
As depicted above, after i set the flash variable, i could redirect_to either the route(route1) that uses this flash variable or another route(route2) that doesn't care about this flash variable at all.
The issue is, when i redirect to route2, and then go on and mind my own business, hitting several routes/actions in the process, when i end up hitting the route1, the flash variable is still there.
I haven't seen anything in the documentation that says it is available until it is read. Is this the case? or am i doing something wrong?
Thanks in Advance
I'm seeing this as well (rails 4.2.11), and agree: no docs indicate access of flash should be necessary.
But, if I have a page that sets flash[:blah] = 'applesauce' and consumes the flash (e.g., puts flash[:blah]) on the next request, that key is not present in the following request. If I don't, it will linger through request after request until I hit a one where I check the flash.
My workaround is this:
In application_controller.rb
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_action :touch_flash
#...
def touch_flash
flash
end
end
This act of referencing flash appears to be enough to trigger a discard at end of the request (but doesn't interfere with any actual access later in the request). Next request, it's gone as expected.

Handling errors with Braintree in Ruby

I am using Braintree to process payments via my web application, no problems so far, plenty of documentation but just a little unsure of how to handle errors in my controller. I don't think I should be looking to display all the error messages back to the user as that could pose a security risk but I would like to handle my errors better than I do now, perhaps capturing a selection of generic errors?
The point of the question here is how would I go about capturing these, within a rescue or create a method that errors would go through and then display some custom messages for certain errors?
At the moment I have a very simple controller action
#result = Braintree::Transaction.sale(
amount: #amount,
payment_method_nonce: params[:payment_method_nonce],
options: {
submit_for_settlement: true
}
)
if #result.success?
redirect_to thank_you_path
else
flash[:alert] = 'Something went wrong while processing your transaction. Please try again!'
gon.client_token = generate_client_token
render :new
end
I just display a generic "Something went wrong" message when #result is not successful.
Are there better ways to deal with this?
The result is an instance of an object, having the whole information about transaction status.
You might extract whatever information you want and print it out to the client.
E.g. to group the messages by the error code, one might use smth like this:
unless #result.success?
flash[:alert] = case #result.transaction.processor_response_code.to_s
when /^2/ then "Contact bank"
else "Something went wrong"
end
...
end

Error handling using aspects in Ruby

I see myself handling similar exceptions in a rather similar fashion repeatedly and would like to use aspects to keep this error handling code outside of the core business logic. A quick search online pulled up a couple of ruby gems (aquarium, aspector, etc) but I don't see a whole lot of downloads for those gems in rubygems. Given that, I want to believe there are probably other nicer ways to deal with this in Ruby.
get '/products/:id' do
begin
product = find_product params[:id]
rescue Mongoid::Errors::DocumentNotFound
status 404
end
end
get '/users/:id' do
begin
user = find_user params[:id]
rescue Mongoid::Errors::DocumentNotFound
status 404
end
end
In the above example, there are 2 Sinatra routes that look for a requested object by ID in MongoDB and throw a 404 if the object were not to be found. Clearly, the code is repetitive and I am looking to find a Ruby way to make it DRY.
You can see answer in this guide.
You code example:
error Mongoid::Errors::DocumentNotFound do
status 404
end

Raise custom exceptions, return constants, or return symbols? Why?

Assuming I have a WebCrawler class. There are several errors it can encounter. How should I propagate the errors upward?
Using exceptions:
class WebCrawler
class UrlBadFormatError < StandardError; end
class PageNotFoundError < StandardError; end
class UnauthorizedError < StandardError; end
def crawl(url)
if(! url =~ /some_format/)
raise UrlBadFormatError
response = get(url)
if(response.code == 404)
raise PageNotFoundError
if(response.code == 403)
raise UnauthorizedError
...
end
end
or constants:
class WebCrawler
URL_BAD_FORMAT = 1
PAGE_NOT_FOUND = 2
UNAUTHORZIED = 3
def crawl(url)
if(! url =~ /some_format/)
return URL_BAD_FORMAT
response = get(url)
if(response.code == 404)
return PAGE_NOT_FOUND
if(response.code == 403)
return UNAUTHORZIED
...
end
end
or symbols:
class WebCrawler
def crawl(url)
if(! url =~ /some_format/)
return :url_bad_format
response = get(url)
if(response.code == 404)
return :page_not_found
if(response.code == 403)
return :unauthorized
...
end
end
which is best? or it depends(on what?)
For something which indicates programmer error, such as the wrong type of argument passed to a method, definitely throw an exception. The exception will crash the program, drawing the programmer's attention to the fact that they are using your class incorrectly, so they can fix the problem. In this case, returning an error code wouldn't make sense, because the program will have to include code to check the return value, but after the program is debugged, such errors shouldn't ever happen.
In your WebCrawler class, is it expected that crawl will receive a bad URL as an argument sometimes? I think the answer is probably no. So raising an exception would be appropriate when a bad URL is passed.
When an exception is raised, the flow of execution suddenly "jumps" to the innermost handler. This can be a useful way to structure code when the exception is not expected to happen most of the time, because you can write the "main flow" of your method as simple, straight-line code without including a lot of details about what will happen when some rare error condition occurs. Those details can be separated from the "main flow" code, and put in an exception handler. When an error condition is expected to happen under normal conditions, though, it can be better to put the error handling code inline with the "main flow", to make it clearer what is going on. If the control flow of your program "jumps around" (as is the case when exceptions are used for normal flow control), that means the reader also has to "jump around" in the program text as they are figuring out how it works.
For the other two, I think it is expected that at least sometimes, the HTTP request will return an error code. To determine whether an exception or special return value is the best way to indicate such a condition, I would think about how often those conditions are going to happen under normal usage. Think also about how the client code will read either way. If you use exceptions, they will have to write something like:
urls.map do |url|
begin
crawl(url)
rescue PageNotFoundError
""
rescue UnauthorizedError
""
end
end
(By the way, I think this code example shows something: it might be a good idea if both of your custom exceptions inherit from a common superclass, so you can catch both of them with a single rescue clause if desired.) Or if you use error codes, it would look something like:
urls.map do |url|
response = crawl(url)
if [:page_not_found, :unauthorized].include? response
""
else
response
end
end
Which do you think reads better? It's really up to you. The one thing which you do not want to do is use integer constants for errors. Why use integers? When you print them in a debug trace, you'll have to go look at the list of constants to see what each one means. And using symbols is just as efficient computationally.
Why wouldn't you throw exceptions? They can encapsulate additional information besides just the type, are trivially rescued, and if you're using an IDE, are first-class citizens.
If it's an exception then by all means raises an exception! All three of those cases are, in my opinion, exceptions. While some may argue that 4xx status codes aren't exception-worthy since you may expect them to happen, they are still client errors.
You may also read about Ruby's throw/catch, which offer exception-like behavior for cases where "don't use exceptions for control flow" applies (though I don't think that's the case here).
You should raise errors. If you encounter a malformed URL, or if the page isn't found, or if you weren't authorized to access the page, it means you cannot continue crawling. Raising an error or exception returns from the method and lets the caller deal with the unusual situation.
It should also include information about the error, such as error codes, the URL which resulted in an error and any other relevant information. It can help in deciding how best to handle the error and can later be formatted into a helpful message for the user.
What you should not do, ever, is return numeric error codes. Ruby is not C. Just use symbols instead.
I am against the use of exceptions upon encountering 403s, 404s, malformed urls and similar common occurences on the web. Exceptions are meant for "internal" errors. In the World Wild Web, bad URLs are entirely unexceptional. There should be a method(s) for handling each different URL disease. I would personally return special values as symbols, or some "SpecialCase" objects recording what happened. There is also underused catch...throw statement.

Resources