Add additional data (description/context) to error logging

[Ethan Stern]

As I’m refactoring out my old logger, I’m left wanting for one of its behaviors. Could we have an additional input (I think a string would be fine in all of my cases) for additional description or context? This is a place I normally include additional info that must come from the context that produced the error. Sometimes I include debugging tips like “check the com port assignment for this device” if the code knows a likely reason for the error. To get this functionality with the new logger, I need to call sequential logs (one for the error and another for the suggested remediation/additional context) and put the ‘plain’ event log call into an error case selector to make sure I only suggest the remedy when the error occurs.

If modifying the existing “Log If Error” isn’t feasible, how about adding an additional method like “Log If Error With Context”?

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[[e-mail]]

How would you want the new string and the error message to be put together? Just concatenate the context on at the end of the error string? I don’t see any reason this couldn’t be implemented, although I might want to rework the connector pane of that method to make it a bit cleaner

[[e-mail]]

This is the code that currently gets called when using the log if error method. I added the error format class as a way to preserve the ability to use the error class system Jon’s old logger had. I could certainly just append the context string to the end, and if someone wanted something different they could use a specific error formatter

[Ethan Stern]

Basically, yes, with the exception (but not requirement) that I put the context before the error text, because it is usually the most relevant/important/human-readable information when trying to fix the problem. When error descriptions grow long, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the string and--not that I’d ever do this--NOT read the whole thing through to the end. (okay, I do that all the time.)