errorsfrom

Errorsfrom is a term used in software engineering to describe a mechanism for recording the provenance of errors by capturing information about where and why they originated. Although not an official standard, the concept appears in discussions of error handling and debugging to improve traceability. An errorsfrom value typically pairs an error with a provenance record, which may include a call stack fragment, function or module names, timestamps, input context, and an operation description.

Design and usage: In practice, errorsfrom is implemented as a wrapper around existing error types or as a data structure in languages with union types. It enables chaining or aggregating multiple causes, so a failure in a downstream component can carry a trace of its upstream origins. This aids users and developers when diagnosing failures and when auditing system behavior.

Examples: When a file read fails due to a permission error, errorsfrom can attach the origin chain: readFile -> permissionsCheck -> file://path, along with the original error message.

Benefits and considerations: It improves debuggability and post hoc analysis but can introduce overhead and potential privacy concerns if provenance data is too verbose. Adoption varies; some platforms offer built-in error chaining or backtraces, while others rely on application-level conventions.

See also: error handling, error propagation, provenance, stack trace, exception chaining.