`Plot::show()` panics when no opener binary exists, and silently no-ops when it fails
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 1.5k
- Forks
- 128
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Plot::show() offers no way for a caller to handle a failed browser handoff.
Running it on a headless server causes a panic, but the panic message is misleading.
How to reproduce
use plotly::{Plot, Scatter};
fn main() {
let mut plot = Plot::new();
plot.add_trace(Scatter::new(vec![0, 1, 2], vec![0.0, 1.5, 3.0]));
plot.show();
}
Run on a headless Linux host with no xdg-open on PATH 👍
thread 'main' panicked at .../plotly-0.14.1/src/plot.rs:789:14:
Could not find default application for HTML files.
[...]
: Os { code: 2, kind: NotFound, message: "No such file or directory" }
Environment
- plotly 0.14.1
- rustc 1.98.0
- AlmaLinux 9.8
Expected
A library call should not abort the process over a missing external binary. The caller should have
some way to detect this and potentially fall back to write_html() or write_image() on its own or
show a clear error message.
Cause
There are two problems with it:
-
Missing binary panics:
.output()returnsErronly when the process cannot be
spawned, i.e.xdg-openis not onPATH..expect()turns that into a panic, and
show()returns(), so a caller has nothing to match on.
The resulting error message is very misleading here: https://github.com/plotly/plotly.rs/blob/00fe0512e9f924bd0fc2edfc6cc617a1604f4e0d/plotly/src/plot.rs#L57-L65 -
Return code of the xdg-open is ignored: If
xdg-openis installed but exits non-zero
(e.g. when no application is registered for HTML) it still returnsOk, carrying
the failure insideOutput::status, but status is never read.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start in plotly/src/plot.rs at the referenced Plot::show() implementation and inspect the Linux, macOS, and Windows branches, including the error definitions near lines 57-65. Reproduce the headless Linux case, then verify that missing opener binaries and non-zero opener statuses are reported to callers rather than causing a panic or being silently ignored.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- data-visualization
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 62/100