Pgreet::Error - Error handling object for Penguin Greetings.


Pgreet documentation Contained in the Pgreet distribution.

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NAME

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Pgreet::Error - Error handling object for Penguin Greetings.

SYNOPSIS

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  # Constructor:
  $Pg_error = new Pgreet::Error($Pg_default_config, 'CGIApp');

  # Attach new CGIUtils object to Error obj.
  $Pg_error->add_cgi_obj($Pg_cgi);




  # Error reporting:
  $Pg_error->report('level',
                    "any number of diagnostic message",
                    "lines"
                   );

DESCRIPTION

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The module Pgreet::Error is the Penguin Greetings context-independent error handling module. This module uses the same syntax whether being called from a "faceless" daemon, a CGI application, or a command line utility. More importantly, library routines calling the error object passed as a parameter can correctly output to the appropriate venue. This module was necessary so that Penguin Greetings could use common code between: pgreetd the ecard managing daemon, pgreet.pl.cgi the CGI application, and utilities like PgTemplateTest.

The whole purpose of the module is to simplify the matter of handling errors. Once the object is constructed, calls to the error module are styled after syslog entries. Depending on the type, different methods will actually be used to output the error message. In the case of a daemon error, the errors will be logged to the Penguin Greeting log file and if the problem is serious enough the syslog facility (usually messages log file.) If the error occurs while running as a CGI application, the error will be handled using the Perl modules CGI:Carp and if severe enough, an error template will be displayed, Otherwise, the error message is simply displayed to Standard Output in a reasonable format.

CONSTRUCTING AN ERROR OBJECT

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The Pgreet::Error constructor expects two parameters. The first is a Penguin Greeting configuration object. The second is descriptor of the type of application is creating the object. There are three recognized types: daemon (for a application daemon like pgreetd,) CGIApp (for a CGI application, Speedy CGI application, etc. like pgreet.pl.cgi,) and App (for a command line application like PgTemplateTest.) For example, creating an error object for a CGI application would be as follows:

  	$Pg_error = new Pgreet::Error($Pg_default_config, 'CGIApp');

From that point on, this error object can be used to report errors in the application that created it and passed on to other modules so that errors occurring in those modules will be handled consistently.

New to version 0.9.2 is a method to attach a Pgreet::CGIUtils object to the error object. The method to do this is simply: add_cgi_obj, and takes a single argument, a reference to the Pgreet::CGIUtils object. A sample call is provided below:

  # Attach new CGIUtils object to Error obj.
  $Pg_error->add_cgi_obj($Pg_cgi);

ERROR REPORTING SYNTAX

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Once the object is set up, there is only one method that developers should ever use from this module - it is the report method. The report method takes a error level (from syslog) and any number of Perl expressions and outputs a string in the appropriate venue. If the error is severe enough, report will cause the program to halt in a manner appropriate to the way the program is called. If called from a CGI application, report can output an HTML template with an error message based on a supplied error number. A sample call to report is below:

  # Error reporting:
  $Pg_error->report('level',
                    "any number of diagnostic message",
                    "lines"
                   );

Unfortunately, the rich variation in possible error levels for syslog are nor mirrored elsewhere. Pgreet::Error maps the error levels: 'error', 'critical', 'alert', and 'emergency' to a "die" scenario and will cause the application to halt in an appropriate way. All other levels are considered a 'warning' scenario, reported, but the program is allowed to continue.

There is an additional variation for CGI applications. CGI applications interact with the users who may not speak geek or even English. Therefore the text of error messages is configurable via the template system that is used for all other user interactions. To indicate which template message to display, an error number is defined that content developers can then create their own template error messages around. So indicate that an error template should be displayed, the report function looks to see if the first error "message" is in fact a number. If so, and the error level is a die scenario, then error template is displayed corresponding to that error number and the CGI application halts. For example, should a user enter an incorrect access password the following call is made to report:



  $Pg_error->report('error', 110,
                    "Attempt to login with invalid login/password pair"
                   );

Note that if the error object is called in a die scenario, the Penguin Greetings error object dies within the object itself. This is admittedly harder to debug, but is impossible to avoid in order to handle error condition correctly in code that does not "know" what sort application called it (shared libraries that are used by the daemon, CGI Application, etc.)

OTHER METHODS

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There is no obvious reason why any method besides report would never need to be used within Pgreet::Error. However, the following methods are noted for completeness:

report_cgi()

Method that does the work when report is called from a CGI application.

report_daemon()

Method that does the work when report is called from a "faceless" daemon.

report_stderr()

Method that does the work when report is called from standard command-line application.

_is_error()

Convenience predicate that returns true if argument is one of the following error levels: 'error', 'critical', 'alert', or 'emergency'

error_template()

method to send an error message out via the content developers Embperl template.

_LocalChangeVars()

A "stub" routine to replace the Pgreet::CGIUtils ChangeVars method if report is called before the Pgreet::CGIUtils object has been attached to the report object. It is sufficient for the extreme cases when such a call might be made, but should basically be never used if the software if functioning correctly and configuration files are "reasonable."

COPYRIGHT

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BUGS

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No known bugs at this time.

AUTHOR

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Edouard Lagache <pgreetdev@canebas.org>

VERSION

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1.0.0

SEE ALSO

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syslog, Pgreet, Pgreet::Config, Log::Dispatch, Log::Dispatch::File, Log::Dispatch::Syslog, CGI::Carp


Pgreet documentation Contained in the Pgreet distribution.

package Pgreet::Error;
#
# File: Error.pm
######################################################################
#
#                ** PENGUIN GREETINGS (pgreet) **
#
# A Perl CGI-based web card application for LINUX and probably any
# other UNIX system supporting standard Perl extensions.
#
#  Edouard Lagache, elagache@canebas.org, Copyright (C)  2003-2005
#
# Penguin Greetings (pgreet) consists of a Perl CGI script that
# handles interactions with users wishing to create and/or
# retrieve cards and a system daemon that works behind the scenes
# to store the data and email the cards.
#
# ** This program has been released under GNU GENERAL PUBLIC
# ** LICENSE.  For information, see the COPYING file included
# ** with this code.
#
# For more information and for the latest updates go to the
# Penguin Greetings official web site at:
#
#     http://pgreet.sourceforge.net/
#
# and the SourceForge project page at:
#
#     http://sourceforge.net/projects/pgreet/
#
# ----------
#
#           Perl Module: Pgreet::Error
#
# This is the Penguin Greetings (pgreet) shared library for error
# handling.  It defines common conditions that are then handled
# differently by the CGI application and the system daemon.
######################################################################
# $Id: Error.pm,v 1.26 2005/05/31 16:44:39 elagache Exp $

$VERSION = "1.0.0"; # update after release

# Module exporter declarations
@ISA       = qw(Exporter);
@EXPORT    = qw();
@EXPORT_OK = qw();

# Perl modules.
use CGI qw(:standard escape);
use CGI::Carp;
use Log::Dispatch;                     # Syslog entries
use Log::Dispatch::Syslog;
use Log::Dispatch::File;               # pgreet own log.
use POSIX qw(strftime);

# Perl Pragmas
use strict;

########################### METHODS ###########################

sub new {
#
# Create new object and make required assignments.
#
  my $class = shift;
  my $Pg_config = shift;
  my $AppType = shift;
  my $syslog_obj = shift;
  my $pgreet_log_obj = shift;

  my $self = {};
  bless $self, $class;

  # Assign configuration object
  $self->{'Pg_config'} = $Pg_config;

  # Set up object to deal with various calling application types.
  if ($AppType =~ m/daemon/i) { # Daemon
	$self->{'AppType'} = 'daemon';
	$self->{'syslog_obj'} = $syslog_obj;
	$self->{'pgreet_log_obj'} = $pgreet_log_obj;
  }
  # CGI application.
  elsif ($AppType =~ m/CGIApp/i) {
	$self->{'AppType'} = 'CGIApp';
  }
  # Standard command line application (utility).
  elsif ($AppType =~ m/App/i) {
	$self->{'AppType'} = 'App';
  } else {
	# Should never reach this statement.
	die "Unknown application type trying to create Pgreet Error object";
  }

  return($self);
}

sub add_cgi_obj {
#
# Method to attach a Penguin Greetings CGIUtils object to
# Error object so that the variables transferred to Embperl
# are the same for a call from the main CGI application as
# there are from an error condition.
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $Pg_cgi = shift;

  return($self->{'Pg_cgi'} = $Pg_cgi);

}

sub report {
#
# Main error reporting method.  If running as CGI report,
# output via warn and die.  If a daemon, report the errors
# via the Log::Dispatch object.  Else report errors via
# traditional STDERR.
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $level = shift;
  my @messages = @_;

  if ($self->{'AppType'} eq 'CGIApp') {
	$self->report_cgi($level, @messages);
  }
  elsif ($self->{'AppType'} eq 'daemon') {
	$self->report_daemon($level, @messages);
  } else {
	$self->report_stderr($level, @messages);
  }
}

sub report_cgi {
#
# Main error reporting method for CGI application.  If
# this is a "serious" error, report via 'die', else
# report via 'warn.'  Of course actually croak/carp.
# If first item is just a number, it is taken as an
# error number and sent out as a error_template
# request.
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $level = shift;
  my @messages = @_;
  my $error_no = undef;

  # Check if there is an error number for a template error message
  if ($messages[0] =~ /^\d+$/) {
	$error_no = shift @messages;
  }

  # No matter what - output message to httpd log.
  carp join('', @messages); # Use 'carp' to put out log message

  # If there is an error number - output template
  if (defined($error_no)) {
	$self->error_template($error_no);
  }

  # If this is designated as an error - terminate script
  if (_is_error($level)) {
	# Don't use croak until after template has gone out.
	croak "Fatal error - Script terminated";
  }
}


sub report_daemon {
#
# Main error reporting for the system daemon which
# reports the errors via the Log::Dispatch object.
# To simplify matters, only error or higher are
# reported to syslog.  All else are sent to pgreet.log
# only.  If call is error or higher, then application
# is halted here with an exit(1) call.
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $level = shift;
  my @messages = @_;

  my $syslog_obj = $self->{'syslog_obj'};
  my $pgreet_log_obj = $self->{'pgreet_log_obj'};

  # Just in case an error number is supplied when object is called from daemon
  if ($messages[0] =~ /^\d+$/) {
	shift @messages;
  }

  my $time = strftime("%b %d %T", localtime());
  $pgreet_log_obj->log(level => $level,
					   message => join('', $time, ' ', @messages, "\n")
					  );

  if (_is_error($level)) {
    $syslog_obj->log(level => $level,
					 message => join('', @messages)
					);
	exit(1);
  }

}


sub report_stderr {
#
# Main error reporting method for utilities that use
# the same error handling system as the rest of Penguin
# Greetings.  These messages are just joined and displayed
# via either croak or carp.
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $level = shift;
  my @messages = @_;

  if (_is_error($level)) {
	croak join('', @messages);
  } else {
	carp join('', @messages);
  }
}



sub _is_error {
#
# Convenience internal subroutine to see if an
# alert level is worthy of the 'die' category.
#
  my $level = shift;

  return (($level eq 'error') or
		  ($level eq 'critical') or
		  ($level eq 'alert') or
		  ($level eq 'emergency')
		 );
}

sub _LocalChangeVars {
#
# "Cheater" subroutine that allows Error.pm to deal with CGI
# errors even if the CGIUtils object isn't defined when called
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $error_no = shift;
  my $Pg_config = $self->{'Pg_config'};

  my $file = $Pg_config->access('default_error');
  my $templatedir = $Pg_config->access('templatedir');
  my $imageurl = $Pg_config->access('imageurl');
  my $hostname = $Pg_config->access('hostname');

  # Create tiny Transfer hash.
  my $Transfer = { hostname => $hostname,
				   templatedir => $templatedir,
				   error_no => $error_no,
				   imageurl => $imageurl,
				 };

  return($Transfer);
}

sub error_template {
#
# Method to send an error message to the CGI server via
# Embperl.
#
  my $self = shift;
  my $error_no = shift;
  my $Pg_config = $self->{'Pg_config'};

  my $file = $Pg_config->access('default_error');
  my $templatedir = $Pg_config->access('templatedir');
  my $tpl = $Pg_config->access('template_suffix');
  my $Embperl_Object = $Pg_config->access('Embperl_Object');
  my $Mason_Object = $Pg_config->access('Mason_Object');
  my $Transfer;
  my $Pg_cgi;

  # If CGIUtils object defined, used that for variables & Embperl execution
  if (exists($self->{'Pg_cgi'})) {
	$Pg_cgi = $self->{'Pg_cgi'};
	$Pg_cgi->set_value('error_no', $error_no);
	$Transfer = $Pg_cgi->ChangeVars();

	print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
	# Use specified Embedded Perl interpreter.
    if ( $Mason_Object ) {
	  print $Pg_cgi->Mason_Execute($templatedir, "$file.$tpl",
								   $Transfer, $Mason_Object);
	} else {
	  print $Pg_cgi->Embperl_Execute($templatedir, "$file.$tpl",
									 $Transfer, $Embperl_Object);
	}
  } else { # Else use "cheater" local stub routine.
	$Transfer = $self->_LocalChangeVars($error_no);
	print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
	Embperl::Execute ({inputfile  => "$templatedir/$file.$tpl",
					   param  => [$Transfer],
					  }
					 );
  }


} # End sub error_template



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