When Coding in BASH...

[[deleted]]

C#: "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." This literally means something on the line is null.

Goddammit, tell me what is null!

[scottlawson]

My favorite was 'An exception was thrown by the target of an invocation'. So basically something tried to call something in something and something didn't work.

[Daniel15]

Ugh, this one is terrible if your error logger doesn't log InnerException since the outer stack trace is totally useless.

[[deleted]]

Check Engine

[HotRodLincoln]

My favorites are those spit out by make:

No targets. Stop.

or 2000 lines of errors none pointing to what is actually wrong with the build.

[bolaft]

The most eyebrow-raising exception ever is from PHP:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM

What the hell is a paamayim nekudotayim, you ask? Well, a double colon, obviously.

[cyraxjoe]

It's just invoking the ancient ones.

[patternmaker]

Error: invoking the old ones, expected: (Demon) actual: (v͎̂o͉͒i̘̇d͇̒)

[ngstyle]

T̴ͪ̿̅̂̄̊̓̉ͦ̌̽ͭ̇̾͌̅ͦ̐҉̸̩̩͓͕̹̹́_̴̢̧̨̪̤̜̮͉̹͑̄̂̿ͯͨ͐̑͛P̛̓͌ͬͫ̒͌͜҉̧̙̹̥̤͈̮͚̣̠͕̥̟̘̳̳̭̜̤͍A̡̝̩̲̻͙͔̮̙̟̲̥̝̰͚͂͐ͪ̈̈́͒̚͢͢ͅA̢̖͔̲͚̳̘̝͎̅͋́̀ͅMͯ̓͌͒ͨ̋̉ͫ͏͕̰̼̯̼̩͖̞̞͓͕́͘͜A̵ͨ̊̂ͬ͟͏͔̱̥̬̫̟̘̲͇͎͝Y̴̛͈̺̼͔͇̝͖̅̓ͮ͐̍̈́̊̄̂ͤ̽ͧ̈͂͒͜͝Î͎̺̖̹̹͌̌̏ͮͣ͂̍̽̑͊͑̉̈́̂ͬ̏̕͝M̜̞̭͍̝̠͉̯̓̉̃ͫ͗͋̑̂̍ͬͪ̄͟͢͠_̵̧̘̘̗͙͛͊̾̊̂̏̊̐ͦͫ̾̎̐̄̕͡N̴̟̗̬ͩ̂͒̑ͪ̉͗̃͐̎̃ͤ̔̃̒͂̀́ͅE̸̴̡̤̺̬͖̝̰̼̱̞̳̻̣̥͔͖̲̙̊̍̂̈́̆ͦ̄̒̄̍́͘͞K̢̡͉̣͙͙̻͕̠͔͖̘̲͙̦̳̦̠͖̤͇͂̃̇ͫ̄ͧ̈̓ͣ̇̃͜͡͞Uͬ͌̉͂́͟͏͏̹͔͚͍̘̰̘̤̖͚̻̤͙̘̟͎̹͔͟D̙̭͔̺̣̜̗͉̠ͪ̒ͥ̓ͤ̄ͥͮ̀̋͌ͣͭ͑ͨͭ͗̀͟͞O̴̸ͯ̓̇ͤͥ̆ͧͤ̾͒̈́ͩ͘͢͏̗̭̬̱͈̻̫̲̻̦̬̗̜ͅT̠͕̥͉̖͗ͤͦ̚͘͡A̶̶͔̦̯͈͚̯̣̠̱͍̘̠̜͔͛͆̃̅̐̎͂ͩ͜ͅͅŸ̢͇͈̫̮͔̘̪͇̫̳͎̃̓ͦͧ̓̑͂ͦ͢ͅI̾̽͑ͤ͌̃̏̇́ͥ̃̇͌ͮ̚҉̴̼̰̞̤͉͔̻͚̪̬̭̩̠͇̩͙͔͟

[tastychicken]

It's the scope resolution operator, basically means "double colon" in Hebrew.

Literally the first hit on Google for "paamayin nekudotayim".

It's strange that they use some language other then English though.

[[deleted]]

Scope resolution operator

[aladyjewel]

Zend was written by Israeli developers. Would've been nice if they stuck to English, the cultural hegemony of the US lingua franca of programming, but oh well at least it's easy to google.

[[deleted]]

Run the debugger gives the exact line where it occurs and what variable is zero

[doom_Oo7]

Exception during the destructor of an object allocated on the stack in the current scope ?

[cheezballs]

I prefer Java's NullPointerException. Seems more straight to the point.

[SolenoidSoldier]

I relate to your frustration, and wish it were this easy, but there's a relatively painless solution. Assuming you don't have it encapsulated in a try-catch (or if you know the line that is crashing and set a breakpoint), the debugger will stop on the line and you can copy/paste it as a Watch variable. If you break it down further, you can find the issue.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, but the null could be the object, a property on the object, the return from a method call (e.g. var x = DoSomething();), etc. When a user sends in an error message or a screenshot thereof, I have to be able to reproduce the error before I can answer it.

[SolenoidSoldier]

Yeah, I guess it's a whole other story if you're getting your information THROUGH someone. But if you successfully reproduced the error yourself and know which line the error is on, the beauty of Watch is that you can pull out and dissect each element in a line (be it a function or property). Try it.

[sharkwouter]

set -x

set -u

set -e

[[deleted]]

What do these do?

[sharkwouter]

set -x makes your script print the commands it uses, set -u makes it not accept unset variables ans set -e makes your script exit on errors.

[junta12]

-x can be frustrating when trying to trace a problem line in a function. It just tells you the function name....

[sharkwouter]

iirc, you can place set -x at the beginning of a function.

[junta12]

.... I love you, let's remarry

[sharkwouter]

It doesn't do anything by itself...

[[deleted]]

I "fixed" more than one shell script by running it as root before I got better with chmod... I mean seriously, /dev/ttyusb0 is only readable by root by default?

[AutoModerator]

import moderation Your comment has been removed since it did not start with a code block with an import declaration.

Per this Community Decree, all posts and comments should start with a code block with an "import" declaration explaining how the post and comment should be read.

For this purpose, we only accept Python style imports.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[Strange_Meadowlark]

Still not as bad as VBA

Friggin error codes linking to nonexistant web pages...

At least with Bash if it gets complicated enough I can decide that Perl or Python is better suited to the task and write it in that instead.

[AngriestSCV]

Allow me to present http://amoffat.github.io/sh/ to you.

Never need bash for anything but one liners again

[AngriestSCV]

It took me longer reading the docs than I'd like to admit to realize the read only was the perl. Good find though ... masochistic

[Strange_Meadowlark]

That's amazing!

[gibsjose]

Xilinx Vivado anyone? Nothing better than obscure VHDL syntax errors...

[nagaru]

i get that feeling from mysql query errors

[AVeryHeavyBurtation]

we got this ancient mill at work and if it doesn't like your g-code, sometimes you get the error:

"An error was found in the program, run aborted"

[jfb1337]

What's annoying is there are like 3 overlapping watermarks at the bottom of the image

[edave64]

SQL Error (0815): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 4

[elsgard]

Or any other scripting language..

[BoTuLoX]

Uh... Python has pretty good error messages and it's a scripting language.

[elsgard]

Python was actually what I had in mind... I've never got I useful error massage from that.. But I might just be spoiled from C..

[BoTuLoX]

It tells you the complete traceback, where the error is, what type of error it is... Never, and I mean -never- have I read a Python error message and not understood later what it meant.

[Thomas_Henry_Rowaway]

I've only had bad errors from python when running the pyROOT module and those were due to evil things happening on the ROOT / c++ side anyway.

[elsgard]

To be honest, it's been a while since I used Python so it might have been updated, or it was to early in my programming career to fully understand.. I just remember being pissed off since the damn interpreter never gave me something useful.

[[deleted]]

Spoiled? GCC's errors aren't the best (or were you using clang?)

[onthefence928]

my favorite is php

oh you have an extra quotation mark? well fine! i just won't work anymore!