278878 - Missing semicolon in user.js -> rest of file silently ignored

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Preferences: Backend, defect)

Description

[Akkana Peck]

Some of my user.js was not being picked up.  I finally narrowed it down: I had
this line

user_pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false)

(note the lack of a semicolon) and everything after it was silently ignored:
nothing printed on stdout in a release build, nor any error popups, nor anything
in the JS console.

Isn't there some way that JS could notice a syntax error and complain about it
rather than just silently ignoring the rest of the file?

Comment 1

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

since Bug 98533, we no longer use the js engine to parse the pref files...

Comment 2

[Darin Fisher]

akk: what version of mozilla are you using?

Comment 3

[Akkana Peck]

Oh, sorry!  Should have mentioned that.  1.8a6, the m.o full installer linux
build, id 2005011116.  I don't know how new this problem is; I haven't been
changing user.js much lately until just recently when the new window prefs changed.

Comment 4

[Darin Fisher]

yeah, ok.. then this is probably a bug in the non-JS pref parser that biesi
mentioned.

Comment 5

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(Filter "spam" on 'prefs-nobody-20080612'.)

Comment 6

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

It's been a while.  The comments above stand - we're not actually using JS engine to parse this file, it's a custom, very strict parser that we have.  The errors are only reported in the debug build, as "malformed pref file" warnings, without any additional information.  I don't see us "fixing" the parser to accept non-strict syntax, we don't recommend that people create the pref files manually.  I was about to wontfix this bug, but we should probably just promote those warnings to something that will at least show up on stdout and leave it at that.  It won't be localized, it will only show up in the console, but perhaps it's better than nothing.

Comment 7

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

Attachment: MozReview Request: Bug 278878: Send preference parsing errors to browser console. r?bsmedberg

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/45825/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/45825/

Comment 8

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 8740533 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 278878: Send preference parsing errors to browser console. r?bsmedberg

Why can't we report this to the browser console? When we parse XPCOM manifest files, I made a large effort to report to the browser console because that's where addon devs/users are most likely to see the warning.

Comment 9

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

Can't think of a reason :)

Comment 10

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 8740533 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 278878: Send preference parsing errors to browser console. r?bsmedberg

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/45825/#review44881

Then I think we should do that. stderr printing is not useful to most people.

Comment 11

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

Comment on attachment 8740533 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 278878: Send preference parsing errors to browser console. r?bsmedberg

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/45825/diff/1-2/

Comment 12

[Milan Sreckovic [:milan] (needinfo for best results)]

Comment on attachment 8740533 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 278878: Send preference parsing errors to browser console. r?bsmedberg

Review request updated; see interdiff: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/45825/diff/2-3/

Comment 13

[Benjamin Smedberg]

Comment on attachment 8740533 [details]
MozReview Request: Bug 278878: Send preference parsing errors to browser console. r?bsmedberg

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/45825/#review45599

Beautiful

Comment 14

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/be0e01e71ac3

Comment 15

[Wes Kocher (:KWierso) (Not reading bugmail; email directly if needed)]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/be0e01e71ac3