Question: Does HockeyApp log Swift's `fatalError` messages?

[allen-zeng]

When calling fatalError("a crash message") in Swift, would HockeyApp's crash report catch the content of the string and display it somewhere?

If it does, is it a new addition? What version was it added in?

Thanks!

[ElektrojungeAtWork]

Hey @allen-zeng,

thx for getting in touch.

fatalError("string") will be reported by HockeyApp but it won't show up with the error string but will be reported as aSIGTRAP`.

Best, Benjamin

PS: I've created an item in our backlog to track this, I can't give any ETA though as this requires work in the underlying crash reporting tool.

[dive]

@TroubleMakerBen, hey. Can you tell us a bit more about fatalError handling in HockeyApp? Because at the moment we suspect that HockeyApp SDK treats fatalError as heuristic SIGKILL's.

[achocron]

@dive It looks like the fatalError is being reported as a SIGTRAP without the string, as you pointed out. I've done a little reading and I think that, as @TroubleMakerBen mentioned, we would need to do some more research on the subject (the original work item never ended up making it to the top of our backlog in January).

A little information:

• HockeyApp's crash reporting is based on a framework called PLCrashReporter. You might start at its website.

• As far as I can tell, fatalError doesn't do much more than print an error message and raise a signal, and if that is indeed the case, I'm not sure off hand how the printed error could be captured in an error report (not saying that it's impossible, though).

• I found this archived email thread where someone asked a question similar to yours. I'm not sure who the communicating parties are (though one appears to be an Apple employee) and I don't think they are discussing PLCrashReporter, but it is somewhat insightful nonetheless.

I hope this helps a bit!

[dive]

Hey, @achocron! Yeah, it helps. We will try to investigate as well. I'll keep you posted here about the result, but right now it looks like a very annoying issue to us. We (everyone?) use fatalError() a lot in the current era of Swift and it's very important to distinguish between SIGKILL (+ SIG_friends) and errors that were triggered by a reason and by the app itself.