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coffeecatch

CoffeeCatch, a tiny native POSIX signal catcher (especially useful for JNI code on Android/Dalvik, but it can be used in non-Java projects)

It allows to "gracefully" recover from a signal (SIGSEGV, SIGBUS...) as if it was an exception. It will not gracefully recover from allocator/mutexes corruption etc., however, but at least "most" gentle crashes (null pointer dereferencing, integer division, stack overflow etc.) should be handled without too much troubles.

/** Enter protected section. **/
COFFEE_TRY() {
  /** Try to call 'call_some_native_function'. **/
  call_some_protected_function();
} COFFEE_CATCH() {
  /** Caught a signal: throw Java exception. **/
  /** In pure C projects, you may print an error message (coffeecatch_get_message()). **/
  coffeecatch_throw_exception(env);
} COFFEE_END();

You may read the corresponding discussion about this project.

The handler is thread-safe, but client must have exclusive control on the signal handlers (ie. the library is installing its own signal handlers on top of the existing ones).

Libraries

If you want to get useful stack traces, you should build all your libraries with -funwind-tables (this adds unwinding information). On ARM, you may also use the --no-merge-exidx-entries linker switch, to solve certain issues with unwinding (the switch is possibly not needed anymore). On Android, this can be achieved by using this line in the Android.mk file in each library block:

  LOCAL_CFLAGS := -funwind-tables -Wl,--no-merge-exidx-entries

Example

  • Inside JNI (typically, Android)

First, build the library, or just add the two files in the list of local files to be built:

LOCAL_SRC_FILES += coffeecatch.c coffeejni.c

then, use the COFFEE_TRY_JNI() macro to protect your call(s):

/** The potentially dangerous function. **/
jint call_dangerous_function(JNIEnv* env, jobject object) {
  // ... do dangerous things!
  return 42;
}

/** Protected function stub. **/
void foo_protected(JNIEnv* env, jobject object, jint *retcode) {
  /* Try to call 'call_dangerous_function', and raise proper Java Error upon 
   * fatal error (SEGV, etc.). **/
  COFFEE_TRY_JNI(env, *retcode = call_dangerous_function(env, object));
}

/** Regular JNI entry point. **/
jint Java_com_example_android_MyNative_foo(JNIEnv* env, jobject object) {
  jint retcode = 0;
  foo_protected(env, object, &retcode);
  return retcode;
}

and, in case of crash, get something like this (note: the last Exception with native backtrace is produced on Android >= 4.1.1):

FATAL EXCEPTION: AsyncTask #5
java.lang.RuntimeException: An error occured while executing doInBackground()
	at android.os.AsyncTask$3.done(AsyncTask.java:299)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.finishCompletion(FutureTask.java:352)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.setException(FutureTask.java:219)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:239)
	at android.os.AsyncTask$SerialExecutor$1.run(AsyncTask.java:230)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1080)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:573)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:841)
Caused by: java.lang.Error: signal 11 (Address not mapped to object) at address 0x42 [at libexample.so:0xa024]
	at com.example.jni.ExampleLib.main(Native Method)
	at com.example.ExampleActivity$Runner.runInternal(ExampleActivity.java:998)
	at com.example.ExampleActivity$Runner.doInBackground(ExampleActivity.java:919)
	at com.example.ExampleActivity$Runner.doInBackground(ExampleActivity.java:1)
	at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call(AsyncTask.java:287)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:234)
	... 4 more
Caused by: java.lang.Error: signal 11 (Address not mapped to object) at address 0x42 [at libexample.so:0xa024]
	at data.app_lib.com_example.libexample_so.0xa024(Native Method)
	at data.app_lib.com_example.libexample_so.0x705fc(hts_main2:0x8f74:0)
	at data.app_lib.com_example.libexamplejni_so.0x4cc8(ExampleLib_main:0xf8:0)
	at data.app_lib.com_example.libexamplejni_so.0x52d8(Java_com_example_jni_ExampleLib_main:0x64:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x1dc4c(dvmPlatformInvoke:0x70:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x4dcab(dvmCallJNIMethod(unsigned int const*, JValue*, Method const*, Thread*):0x18a:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x385e1(dvmCheckCallJNIMethod(unsigned int const*, JValue*, Method const*, Thread*):0x8:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x4f699(dvmResolveNativeMethod(unsigned int const*, JValue*, Method const*, Thread*):0xb8:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x27060(Native Method)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x2b580(dvmInterpret(Thread*, Method const*, JValue*):0xb8:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x5fcbd(dvmCallMethodV(Thread*, Method const*, Object*, bool, JValue*, std::__va_list):0x124:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x5fce7(dvmCallMethod(Thread*, Method const*, Object*, JValue*, ...):0x14:0)
	at system.lib.libdvm_so.0x54a6f(Native Method)
	at system.lib.libc_so.0xca58(__thread_entry:0x48:0)
	at system.lib.libc_so.0xcbd4(pthread_create:0xd0:0)
  • Outside JNI code

The COFFEE_TRY()/COFFEE_CATCH()/COFFEE_END() syntax can be used:

void my_function() {
  COFFEE_TRY() {
    /** Try to call 'call_some_native_function'. **/
    call_some_native_function();
  } COFFEE_CATCH() {
    /** Caught a signal. **/
    const char*const message = coffeecatch_get_message();
    fprintf(stderr, "**FATAL ERROR: %s\n", message);
  } COFFEE_END();
}
  • Hints

If you wish to catch signals and continue running your program rather than ending it (this may be dangerous, especially if a crash was spotted within a C library function, such as malloc()), use the coffeecatch_cancel_pending_alarm() function to cancel the default pending alarm triggered to avoid deadlocks.