apple / apple/swift-distributed-tracing

Clarify documentation about the interaction of recordError and setStatus

Open
#167 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
area/documentation
Dominant language
Swift
Stars
320
Forks
57
Avg merge
4d 5h
Merged PRs (30d)
1

Description

Currently the docs aren't prescriptive enough, which can make switching between tracing backends more difficult.

For example, does `recordError` imply:

1. An error occurred during the span, and the span should be considered errored as well, regardless of calls to `setStatus`
2. An error occurred during the span, and the span should be considered errored as well, unless `setStatus` was called with `OK`
3. An error occurred during the span, but the overall status of the span should not be considered errored (unless `setStatus` is also called with `Error`)
4. An error occurred during the span, and as a library we don't attribute any specific semantic meaning to the corresponding status of the span
5. Something else?

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Review the existing documentation for recordError and setStatus, then compare the stated behavior with the tracing semantics expected when switching backends. Done means the documentation explicitly defines how recordError affects span status, including the interaction with setStatus and the applicable exceptions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
swift
Domain
observability-sre
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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