'\" '\" Copyright (c) 1990-1994 The Regents of the University of California. '\" Copyright (c) 1994-1996 Sun Microsystems, Inc. '\" '\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution '\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES. '\" '\" RCS: @(#) bgerror.n,v 1.5 2003/01/21 19:39:59 hunt Exp '\" .so man.macros .TH bgerror n 7.5 Tcl "Tcl Built-In Commands" .BS '\" Note: do not modify the .SH NAME line immediately below! .SH NAME bgerror \- Command invoked to process background errors .SH SYNOPSIS \fBbgerror \fImessage\fR .BE .SH DESCRIPTION .PP The \fBbgerror\fR command doesn't exist as built-in part of Tcl. Instead, individual applications or users can define a \fBbgerror\fR command (e.g. as a Tcl procedure) if they wish to handle background errors. .PP A background error is one that occurs in an event handler or some other command that didn't originate with the application. For example, if an error occurs while executing a command specified with the \fBafter\fR command, then it is a background error. For a non-background error, the error can simply be returned up through nested Tcl command evaluations until it reaches the top-level code in the application; then the application can report the error in whatever way it wishes. When a background error occurs, the unwinding ends in the Tcl library and there is no obvious way for Tcl to report the error. .PP When Tcl detects a background error, it saves information about the error and invokes the \fBbgerror\fR command later as an idle event handler. Before invoking \fBbgerror\fR, Tcl restores the \fBerrorInfo\fR and \fBerrorCode\fR variables to their values at the time the error occurred, then it invokes \fBbgerror\fR with the error message as its only argument. Tcl assumes that the application has implemented the \fBbgerror\fR command, and that the command will report the error in a way that makes sense for the application. Tcl will ignore any result returned by the \fBbgerror\fR command as long as no error is generated. .PP If another Tcl error occurs within the \fBbgerror\fR command (for example, because no \fBbgerror\fR command has been defined) then Tcl reports the error itself by writing a message to stderr. .PP If several background errors accumulate before \fBbgerror\fR is invoked to process them, \fBbgerror\fR will be invoked once for each error, in the order they occurred. However, if \fBbgerror\fR returns with a break exception, then any remaining errors are skipped without calling \fBbgerror\fR. .PP Tcl has no default implementation for \fBbgerror\fR. However, in applications using Tk there is a default \fBbgerror\fR procedure which posts a dialog box containing the error message and offers the user a chance to see a stack trace showing where the error occurred. In addition to allowing the user to view the stack trace, the dialog provides an additional application configurable button which may be used, for example, to save the stack trace to a file. By default, this is the behavior associated with that button. This behavior can be redefined by setting the option database values \fB*ErrorDialog.function.text\fR, to specify the caption for the function button, and \fB*ErrorDialog.function.command\fR, to specify the command to be run. The text of the stack trace is appended to the command when it is evaluated. If either of these options is set to the empty string, then the additional button will not be displayed in the dialog. .SH "SEE ALSO" after(n), tclvars(n) .SH KEYWORDS background error, reporting