Re: proposal: PL/Pythonu - function ereport

On recent occasions, Pavel Stehule and Catalin Iacob have written:
...
>> But *inside* PLPython what I wrote is true, see this example for what I
>> mean:
>>
>> CREATE FUNCTION test()
>> RETURNS int
>> AS $$
>> def a_func():
>> raise plpy.Error('an error')
>>
>> try:
>> a_func()
>> except plpy.Error as exc:
>> plpy.info('have exc {} of type {}'.format(exc, type(exc)))
>> plpy.info('have spidata {}'.format(hasattr(exc, 'spidata')))
>> $$ LANGUAGE plpython3u;
>>
>> Running this produces:
>>
>> DROP FUNCTION
>> CREATE FUNCTION
>> psql:plpy_demo:16: INFO: have exc an error of type <class 'plpy.Error'>
>> psql:plpy_demo:16: INFO: have spidata False
>>
>>> Currently If I raise plpy.Error, then it is immediately trasformed to
>>> PostgreSQL, and and then to SPIError and successors.
>>
>> Depends how you define immediately. I would say it's really not
>> immediately, it's only at the Postgres boundary. Imagine in the
>> example above that a_func could call lots of other Python code and
>> somewhere deep down raise Error would be used. Within that whole
>> execution the error stays Error and can be caught as such, it will
>> have nothing to do with SPIError.
...
> I would to reduce this patch and don't try to touch on buildin exceptions.
> I hope, so there isn't any disagreement?
>
> I though about it lot of, and I see a the core of problems in orthogonal
> constructed exceptions in Python and Postgres. We working with statements
> elog, ereport, RAISE EXCEPTION - and these statements are much more like
> templates - can generate any possible exception. Python is based on working
> with instances of predefined exceptions. And it is core of problem.
> Template like class cannot be ancestor of instance oriented classes. This
> is task for somebody who knows well OOP and meta OOP in Python - total

I've been following this discussion with great interest, because PL/Java
also is rather overdue for tackling the same issues: it has some partial
ability to catch things from PostgreSQL and even examine them in proper
detail, but very limited ability to throw things as information-rich as
is possible from C with ereport. And that work is not as far along as
you are with PL/Python, there is just a preliminary design/discussion
wiki document at
https://github.com/tada/pljava/wiki/Thoughts-on-logging

I was unaware of this project in PL/Pythonu when I began it, then added
the reference when I saw this discussion.

In some ways designing for PL/Java might be easier because it is not
complete freedom to invent the whole design; for example in Java there
is already an SQLException hierarchy specified in JDBC 4, with
SQLNonTransientException, SQLTransientException, SQLRecoverable exception
and their several subclasses, with a defined mapping from the leading
two-character SQLSTATE category codes. So for Java at least one part
of the bikeshed is already painted. :)

But a lot of the rest of the design clearly involves asking the same
questions, such as what happens to an event as it bubbles up from a
PL function called by a PG query called by a PL function ... maybe all
the way out to an exception handler in front-end code. (That could be
a thinkable thought for Java because the standards specify JDBC as its
common database API both client-side and for server PL code, so it's
natural to think about the exception handling being similar both places.
It would be analogous to having the plpy database access functions designed
to present an interface consistent with a client-side API like psycopg.
Forgive me, I'm not familiar enough with PL/Pythonu to know if it *is*
like that or not.)

From following this thread, I have the impression that what is
currently under discussion is low-hanging fruit that may be committed
soon, and other questions remaining for further design and discussion.
I'll continue to be interested in how the deeper design issues continue
to be shaped. Maybe ideas can sort of cross-pollinate ....

-Chap