CustomErrorRegularExpression errors are displayed poorly

[vikukush]

When CustomErrorRegularExpression of Exec task triggers over a bunch of log emitted to stdout, binlog viewer "plucks" the error messages out of the stdout into a separate item:

This makes it impossible to find where exactly the error happened in the stdout.
Meanwhile, normal log has the error messages displayed in correct order, allowing me to find where during execution the error actually happened, so I can see that it was between the NumberSequenceModuleSetup invocations:

12/06/2024 11:35:39: 12/06/2024 11:35:39: SysSetupInstaller: Running Script: NumberSequenceModuleSetup with Timeout 300 seconds.
D:\dbs\Cx\l23t\blah\SyncEngine.proj(153,5): error : 12/06/2024 11:35:39: RunError: Infolog [D:\dbs\sh\l23t\1206_105016\cmd\m\AxPackage\DBSyncPlatformCN\dbsyncplatformCN.proj::TargetFramework=net48]
D:\dbs\Cx\l23t\blah\SyncEngine.proj(153,5): error : 12/06/2024 11:35:39: RunError: Infolog [D:\dbs\sh\l23t\1206_105016\cmd\m\AxPackage\DBSyncPlatformCN\dbsyncplatformCN.proj::TargetFramework=net48]
12/06/2024 11:35:39: 12/06/2024 11:35:39: SysSetupInstaller: Script: NumberSequenceModuleSetup, Completed Successfully. Time elapsed: 0:00:00:00.0404475

Binlog viewer should handle this situation better. Probably by keeping the detected warning/error format strings in the full Messages dropdown.

[KirillOsenkov]

Is there a simple .proj file that I could build myself to investigate this?

[vikukush]

Something like this I guess:

<Project>
  <Target Name="Outputsomestuff">
     <Exec Command="( for /l %%x in (1, 1, 100) do ( echo line%%x ) ) &amp; echo myerror &amp; echo lineend" CustomErrorRegularExpression="myerror" />
  </Target>
</Project>

So in the output it's:

line1
...
line100
myerror
lineend

you can't tell where myerror actually is from binlog.

[KirillOsenkov]

@YuliiaKovalova @JanKrivanek this seems like a good bug if someone wants to try diving deeper into the viewer.

The problem is that we extract all messages into a separate folder, and we extract errors into a different folder. We probably need to also extract the errors interspersed with the messages so that they get the timestamp too.

This is happening here:

MSBuildStructuredLog/src/StructuredLogger/Analyzers/BuildAnalyzer.cs

Line 378 in 6e220d0

private void CollapseMessagesToSubfolder(Task task)

One problem that needs solving is it's super useful to have the errors in a separate folder. We could have them in two places, but that would result in duplication (and two results when searching for them).

Something to think about.

[KirillOsenkov]

Errors are being bucketed into another folder here:

MSBuildStructuredLog/src/StructuredLogger/Construction/Construction.cs

Line 790 in 6e220d0

var errors = parent.GetOrCreateNodeWithName<Folder>(Strings.Errors);