[AccessD] Application Error logging

We do it in .Net.  We even get automatic emails telling us what
unhandled errors the users have encountered.(OOPS!)  That lets us
address problems before the users report them and helps clarify the
really odd problems users occasionally report.

Charlotte Foust

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 8:44 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: [AccessD] Application Error logging

As everyone knows I use a framework to control my applications.  Part of
that framework is an error logger.

MZTools has a very slick widget that can create a custom error logger as
well as place a module name in the top of any module.  It can only do
this one module / procedure at a time but it does work, and works well.

So I use MZTools to create an error handler that calls a custom error
function which logs all errors into an error table.  The parameters
stored are:

1) The error number and message
2) The module, function and line number within the function that caused
the error.
3) The workstation name
4) The user ID from my Security system
5) The date / time of the error
6) An "extra info" field so I can pass my own error data
7) The FE version so I can log the version of the application

As you can see, once you retrofit an application to always call the
error handler, this logging will tell you any error that occurs anywhere
in your application.  It can also log errors silently (not pop up an
error message) for processes that are just automation and should not use
message boxes to display errors (which would hang the process).

I started doing this only a couple of years ago and it has proven
immensely valuable to discovering errors that the users just click
through and never report, errors in my automation code (data import /
exports etc).

I am pretty much to the point where I see every error now.

If there is interest I will provide the code I use to do this logging.
If anyone else does this kind of logging, feel free to speak up and
discuss what you do.

--
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com
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