paddybyers/node — Issue #17: Forcible isolate termination: odd v8 behaviour
Author: paddybyers
Created: 2011-11-12 21:52:10+00:00
State: open

This commit:

https://github.com/paddybyers/node/commit/1f7df3be67f71a59bf89cf97b5ec385476d7eac2

addresses an issue if a sub-script (run by `runInNewContext()`) is forcibly terminated (via `node::Isolate::Stop()`).

The root cause is this:

```
Isolate::PropagatePendingExceptionToExternalTryCatch()
...
} else if (thread_local_top_.pending_exception_ ==
heap()->termination_exception()) {
try_catch_handler()->can_continue_ = false;
try_catch_handler()->exception_ = heap()->null_value();
...
```

So .. when a TerminationException is delivered to an executing sub-script, the innermost TryCatch (which is in `EvalMachine()`) knows that the exception can't be caught, but the exception value itself is not copied. So, when that TryCatch is rethrown, the next TryCatch up the stack has no idea that it's a TerminationException, and happily just propagates a normal exception with null value.

I don't understand why v8 thinks this is the right thing to do. However, we can deal with it in node.