Handling PG exceptions

[Vladimir Dementyev]

From #69:

I'd also appreciate if there were an error_handling function which I could define to 'rescue' any errors inside logidze without failing the transaction. I do this for a number of my other function, e.g.

  EXCEPTION
    -- https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/errcodes-appendix.html
    -- https://www.postgresql.org/docs/11/plpgsql-control-structures.html#PLPGSQL-ERROR-TRAPPING
    WHEN DEADLOCK_DETECTED OR QUERY_CANCELED OR LOCK_NOT_AVAILABLE THEN
      RAISE WARNING 'APP_NOTICE: DATABASE ERROR DETECTED: function % on invoice_ids %. running: %\n', fn_name, invoice_ids, current_query();
      GET STACKED DIAGNOSTICS
          _db_err_sql_state := RETURNED_SQLSTATE,
          _db_err_message := MESSAGE_TEXT,
          _db_err_detail := PG_EXCEPTION_DETAIL,
          _db_err_hint := PG_EXCEPTION_HINT,
          _db_err_context := PG_EXCEPTION_CONTEXT;

      IF COALESCE(current_setting('logidze.meta', true), '') <> '' THEN
        _db_err_responsible_id := current_setting('logidze.meta')::text;
      END IF;

      INSERT INTO database_errors (
        sql_state, message, detail, hint, context,
        fn_name, fn_args, current_query, responsible_id
      ) VALUES (
        _db_err_sql_state, _db_err_message, _db_err_detail, _db_err_hint, _db_err_context,
        fn_name, quote_literal(invoice_ids::text), current_query()::text, _db_err_responsible_id
      );

[Vladimir Dementyev]

@bf4 Could you, please, clarify the "without failing the transaction"? Do you want a trigger function to quietly fail (and log the error somehow) even if the log entry hasn't been created? How would this affect the consistency of data?

[Benjamin Fleischer]

re: "without failing the transaction"

It's my understanding that a function with raises an exception, whether it's a before or after trigger, causes the entire transaction to fail.

@palkan I have two ideas here

1. have a no-op exception handler which allows user-defined exception handling*. ( perhaps allow it to be configured to fail with a warning instead of exception?) In my case, I'd log rescue it and log it in a database table, which will record the failed change, but allow me to review it at least. I'm not positive I could retry it in a useful way. (Some functions I do retry from that table). In general, losing log data is preferable to failing the action. I try never to raise from a side-effect.
2. have a fallback 'serialization' strategy for known exception types which may be slower but are known or expected not to fail

either can be configured to take the name of a function and pass in args to it, or just be expected to be redefinable by the user

[Vladimir Dementyev]

or just be expected to be redefinable by the user

Yeah, we though about similar: defining a blank (or re-raising) logidze_exception_handler function and allow users to redefine it.

have a fallback 'serialization' strategy for known exception types which may be slower but are known or expected not to fail

I like it. We can extract diff-to-jsonb conversion into a separate function (oh no, one more function 🤯) and implement a fallback within it. So instead of

logidze/lib/generators/logidze/install/functions/logidze_logger.sql

Lines 91 to 97 in 3521c5f

 IF (coalesce(current_setting('logidze.full_snapshot', true), '') = 'on') THEN 
   changes = hstore_to_jsonb_loose(hstore(NEW.*)); 
 ELSE 
   changes = hstore_to_jsonb_loose( 
     hstore(NEW.*) - hstore(OLD.*) 
   ); 
 END IF; 

We gonna use:

      IF (coalesce(current_setting('logidze.full_snapshot', true), '') = 'on') THEN
        changes = logidze_diff_to_jsonb(NEW.*);
      ELSE
        changes = logidze_diff_to_jsonb(NEW.*, OLD.*);
      END IF;

@skryukov WDYT?