Yup. Most applications are session oriented. At the point you encounter an error, you know all of the following crucial pieces of information:
* the userid of the user (in case the error is role / security related)
* the date/time of the error down to the second
* the incoming request parameters that triggered the work that encountered your error
* the error itself
* which server executed the request (in case the code issue is server specific)
The only thing missing is some information about the intent of the user at the time they submitted the request. In a Java app, you could do something like this:
* have every command action in your application throw a special myappException
* define the myappException by extending the standard Exception and add the above fields
* catch that myAppException in your main event loop
* when caught, display a form that prompts the user for any additional explanation they might want to supply
* email the content of your myappException fields and their form-entered text to a dist list for your app support team
The resulting email will point your app support team and developers directly to the proper point in your application logs to figure out what else may have contributed to the error without being sent on a wild goose chase based upon bad timestamp information or incomplete text of the error / exception encountered.
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* the userid of the user (in case the error is role / security related)
* the date/time of the error down to the second
* the incoming request parameters that triggered the work that encountered your error
* the error itself
* which server executed the request (in case the code issue is server specific)
The only thing missing is some information about the intent of the user at the time they submitted the request. In a Java app, you could do something like this:
* have every command action in your application throw a special myappException
* define the myappException by extending the standard Exception and add the above fields
* catch that myAppException in your main event loop
* when caught, display a form that prompts the user for any additional explanation they might want to supply
* email the content of your myappException fields and their form-entered text to a dist list for your app support team
The resulting email will point your app support team and developers directly to the proper point in your application logs to figure out what else may have contributed to the error without being sent on a wild goose chase based upon bad timestamp information or incomplete text of the error / exception encountered.