lib: Use regex to compare error message

[kunalspathak]

To make node Engine Agnostic, use better comparison method for error
message.

Checklist

• make -j4 test (UNIX), or vcbuild test (Windows) passes
• commit message follows commit guidelines

Affected core subsystem(s)

lib

[jasnell]

/cc @nodejs/node-chakracore

[boingoing]

Is this the only error message comparison in lib?

[kunalspathak]

Yes, usually error message comparison is done in test for which we added common.engineSpecificMessage API. See this for example.

[cjihrig]

I don't really like this particular change because it makes the test less specific, even if we are unlikely to get burned by it. I think the common.engineSpecificMessage API is a good solution in the long term. In the shorter term, you could generate this particular error dynamically like this:

try { const a = {}; a.a = a; JSON.stringify(a); } catch (err) { console.log(err.message); }

[kunalspathak]

I would love to use common.engineSpecificMessage() API for this case and that's why it is written. We are using it frequently in test to get around similar issues. But this particular check is specific to v8 and is inside product code which I felt should be relaxed. Alternatively I can modify the test case in node-chakracore repo to have a check for engine, but I thought this was more appropriate fix.

[mscdex]

I think between the current regexp and @cjihrig's suggestion, I would vote for the latter (followed by an assert to make sure the value is a non-empty string during startup).

The regexp might match a TypeError that includes the name of a property named 'circular', which would match the wrong error.

[kunalspathak]

Okay. I understand the concerns. How about solving this problem broadly by having engine *specific string templates for various error messages?

// v8-error-msg.js
var errorMsg = [];
...
errorMsg[engineName]['SyntaxError_Unexpected_Id'] = "SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier";
...

We could update test infrastructure to fetch the appropriate error message based on template. Of-course some error message might need parameters like variable names, function names, etc. which we will have to add support for.

// test.js
assert.strictEquals(stdErr, common.engineSpecific('SyntaxError_Unexpected_Id'));

Currently the way it is achieved in node-chakracore is

assert.strictEquals(stdErr, common.engineSpecific({
    v8: "SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier",
    chakracore: "SyntaxError: Expected ';'"})
}));

Additional benefit we get is if engine changes the error message, there will be one common place where the messages will have to be changed. I know this is non-trivial work since it will involve going through every test case that relies on error message, make the entry of error message in central engine specific file and then update the test to fetch that error message, but wanted to get thoughts of community to make node test cases more engine neutral.

cc: @addaleax, @jasnell

*Roughly adopted from #4311 .

[addaleax]

Fwiw I like @cjihrig’s suggestion for this particular problem too, just generating the error dynamically (either lazily or when at the top level of util.js) seems okay to me.

[kunalspathak]

Updated the PR with the change proposed by @cjihrig .

We can have separate discussion for error message centralization.

[cjihrig]

I don't really like this particular change because it makes the test less specific, even if we are unlikely to get burned by it. I think the common.engineSpecificMessage API is a good solution in the long term. In the shorter term, you could generate this particular error dynamically like this:

try { const a = {}; a.a = a; JSON.stringify(a); } catch (err) { console.log(err.message); }

[mscdex]

I think the changes to this line can be reverted now.

[kunalspathak]

Sure.

[mscdex]

LGTM if CI is ok with it: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-pull-request/6915/

[jasnell]

Landed in 4eb194a

[MylesBorins]

This will need to be manually backported to v7.x

[gibfahn]

Should this be backported to v6.x-staging? If yes please follow the guide and raise a backport PR, if no let me know or add the dont-land-on label.