FFDC

[John Hawkins <HA...@uk.ibm.com>]

Hi Folks,

time to discuss FFDC again :-)

We'd really like to see FFDC being used in the code. Here are some 
thoughts....

FFDC is meant to be used in areas where the exception was completely 
unexpected. In WebSphere application server FFDC consists of two elements. 


1.      The Object Stack
is a list of ?useful things to have? so that when an FFDC situation occurs 
the FFDC handler has some information as to what state objects were in 
prior to the Failure. This system is only as good as the information given 
put on the stack and relies on developers putting the appropriate objects 
to the stack.

2.      FFDC at every exception
Websphere application server originally expected every exception to have 
an FFDC record output. This led to situations where FFDC was being 
produced and the exception was being thrown back up the stack. The next 
catcher would then produce more FFDC. This is obviously not a good system. 



I don't believe that it's possible to automate the putting in of FFDC and 
that it's a completely manual process - thoughts?


Does everyone agree that we should have the Object stack or do we just 
want an FFDC API only? I think the Object stack would be a good idea in 
certain circumstances - it does require that you know the code-paths (and 
there respective entry points). However, we really only have a couple of 
these paths so it should be fairly obvious?

Does anyone have any thoughts on the API?

thoughts please?


cheers,
John.

Re: FFDC

[Davanum Srinivas <da...@gmail.com>]

what's FFDC? :)

-- dims

On 5/13/05, John Hawkins <HA...@uk.ibm.com> wrote:
>  
> Hi Folks, 
>  
> time to discuss FFDC again :-) 
>  
> We'd really like to see FFDC being used in the code. Here are some
> thoughts.... 
>  
> FFDC is meant to be used in areas where the exception was completely
> unexpected. In WebSphere application server FFDC consists of two elements. 
>  
> 1.        The Object Stack 
> is a list of "useful things to have" so that when an FFDC situation occurs
> the FFDC handler has some information as to what state objects were in prior
> to the Failure. This system is only as good as the information given put on
> the stack and relies on developers putting the appropriate objects to the
> stack. 
>  
> 2.        FFDC at every exception 
> Websphere application server originally expected every exception to have an
> FFDC record output. This led to situations where FFDC was being produced and
> the exception was being thrown back up the stack. The next catcher would
> then produce more FFDC. This is obviously not a good system. 
>  
>  
> I don't believe that it's possible to automate the putting in of FFDC and
> that it's a completely manual process - thoughts? 
>  
>  
> Does everyone agree that we should have the Object stack or do we just want
> an FFDC API only? I think the Object stack would be a good idea in certain
> circumstances - it does require that you know the code-paths (and there
> respective entry points). However, we really only have a couple of these
> paths so it should be fairly obvious? 
>  
> Does anyone have any thoughts on the API? 
>  
> thoughts please? 
>  
>  
> cheers, 
> John. 
>  
>  


-- 
Davanum Srinivas - http://webservices.apache.org/~dims/