640058 - Element._locateElem() should throw an error if element can't be located

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Mozilla QA Graveyard :: Mozmill Tests, defect)

Description

[Geo Mealer [:geo] -- This account is inactive after 2015-07-07]

Element._locateElem() should guarantee location. Currently, if you attempt to create via any of the elementslib constructors, you might get a null element back. 

_locateElem() should validate itself before returning.

Comment 1

[Geo Mealer [:geo] -- This account is inactive after 2015-07-07]

First, my summary was wrong. The Elem would never be null, just the node referenced by it.

However, on further investigation, we're throwing reasonable errors for all construction types:

"node" throws on construction if undefined. 
"tag" already threw a nice error if no nodes were found.

All the rest are legacy Elem constructors, and the controller throws a nice error on first use, which is exactly when we'd be able to throw one as well due to lazy-finding. In fact, in order to do this I'd have to catch the existing controller errors just to throw my own.

Since I'm happy with the existing messages plus Elem/controller are going to fundamentally change anyway, I'm wontfixing this until at least after the Elem/controller redesign in Mozmill 2.0

Comment 2

[Geo Mealer [:geo] -- This account is inactive after 2015-07-07]

Should note, not a bust though, because figuring all this out exposed Bug 641713 :D