1 Feb 2006 07:55
Interesting article on how to (and how *not* to) get crash reports on OS X
Daring Fireball article: http://daringfireball.net/2006/01/smart_crash_reports Way down deep in the article is a small excerpt of how to do it "properly": > Other developers have devised their own systems. Michael Tsai’s > C-Command family of apps all contain a custom crash reporter, > MJTCrashReporter, of his own design. Even though I use SpamSieve and > BBAutoComplete constantly, and I beta test both applications, I have > never seen either of them crash — so I’ve never actually seen Tsai’s > crash reporter in action. I asked him how it works, and he replied: > >> When the application starts up, it uses signal (3) to register for >> the signals that indicate crashes. When the app crashes, it calls >> the signal handler, which launches MJTCrashReporter and then quits >> the app. MJTCrashReporter waits a second or two to give the system >> time to write the crash log file, then it brings up its crash >> reporter window, pre-filled with the default address from Address >> Book and the latest crash log. To send the report, it makes an HTTP >> POST to c-command.com. I treat most crash reports as regular tech >> support issues, so I have the server send them to me as e-mails with >> the user’s address in the reply-to. > > Absolutely beautiful. Also: doesn’t interfere a whit with any other > software on the system. Tsai also pointed out another advantage to > rolling one’s own crash reporter system: backwards compatibility. > Unsanity’s SCR only works on 10.4 or later; Tsai’s works all the way > back to Mac OS X 10.2, which his applications still support.(Continue reading)
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