Compiler error message misses the target

[Alan Thompson]

<rant-on-error-messages>

So I get a strange error from the compiler after a few minor edits:

Syntax error compiling at (tupelo/forest.clj:7:1).

Unable to resolve symbol: d in this context

Full report at: /tmp/clojure-18236661144073611223.edn

with the following EDN message:

{:clojure.main/message
 "Syntax error compiling at (tupelo/forest.clj:7:1).\nUnable to resolve symbol: d in this context\n",
 :clojure.main/triage
 {:clojure.error/phase :compile-syntax-check,
  :clojure.error/line 7,
  :clojure.error/column 1,
  :clojure.error/source "forest.clj",
  :clojure.error/path "tupelo/forest.clj",
  :clojure.error/class java.lang.RuntimeException,
  :clojure.error/cause "Unable to resolve symbol: d in this context"},
 :clojure.main/trace
 {:via
  [{:type clojure.lang.Compiler$CompilerException,
    :message "Syntax error compiling at (tupelo/forest.clj:7:1).",
    :data
    {:clojure.error/phase :compile-syntax-check,
     :clojure.error/line 7,
     :clojure.error/column 1,
     :clojure.error/source "tupelo/forest.clj"},
    :at [clojure.lang.Compiler analyze "Compiler.java" 6808]}
   {:type java.lang.RuntimeException,
    :message "Unable to resolve symbol: d in this context",
    :at [clojure.lang.Util runtimeException "Util.java" 221]}],

.....

and I figure I accidentally got a typo somewhere.  Look at the top of the file:

Hmmm, no stray characters there...

 <Searches several files for many minutes, uses git, re-compile, head-scratching, finally looks at random near edit site...Ah ha!>

Oh, look at this on line 159:

So, I got a random character inserted, and the compiler directs me to a line 152 lines away from the actual error location.  Any we wonder why Clojure has slow adoption....

</rant-on-error-messages>

I could probably figure out a fix for problems like this, but I'm worried that it wouldn't be accepted.

Alan

[Andy Fingerhut]

You can check with Alex Miller if you have doubts, but given that error messages, and in particular the one you show, is at this moment an area of active changes in Clojure 1.10.1 beta versions, they may be open to fixes to such things right now.

Andy

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[Matching Socks]

Was that letter d the only error in the file, as it turned out?

[Alex Miller]

I would definitely be interested in understanding and improving that error reporting. What was the command you ran to produce the error and can you make a smaller self contained repro?

[Peter Hull]

I tried just with the output of 'lein new app' - put an extra 'd' somewhere at the top level in core.clj, say below (defn- main ...), and then 'lein run' will give a strange location for the error (e.g. line 1 column 113)

Is the same as what Alan is reporting?