error occurs in the inner function, but only reported in the outer function

[idavydov]

When calling nested functions, the error is reported in the outer function outer_f(), while it happens in the inner function inner_f(). In complex cases this is very difficult to debug.

The correct error message ("inner_f") is reported if we:

• use stopifnot() instead of assert_that()
• do not override the msg argument

I suspect this has something to do with lazy evaluation, but not sure.

inner_f <- function(argument) {
  assertthat::assert_that(argument > 0, msg = "inner_f")
  argument
}

outer_f <- function(argument) {
  assertthat::assert_that(argument > 0, msg = "outer_f")
}

outer_f(inner_f(0))
#> Error: outer_f

^{Created on 2021-11-04 by the reprex package (v2.0.1)}

Session info

sessioninfo::session_info()
#> ─ Session info  ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  hash: raised back of hand: light skin tone, non-potable water, right arrow
#> 
#>  setting  value
#>  version  R version 4.0.1 (2020-06-06)
#>  os       CentOS Linux 7 (Core)
#>  system   x86_64, linux-gnu
#>  ui       X11
#>  language (EN)
#>  collate  en_US.UTF-8
#>  ctype    en_US.UTF-8
#>  tz       Europe/Zurich
#>  date     2021-11-04
#>  pandoc   2.7.3 @ <...>
#> 
#> ─ Packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  package     * version date (UTC) lib source
#>  assertthat    0.2.1   2019-03-21 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  backports     1.3.0   2021-10-27 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  cli           3.1.0   2021-10-27 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  crayon        1.4.2   2021-10-29 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  digest        0.6.28  2021-09-23 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  ellipsis      0.3.2   2021-04-29 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  evaluate      0.14    2019-05-28 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  fansi         0.5.0   2021-05-25 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  fastmap       1.1.0   2021-01-25 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  fs            1.5.0   2020-07-31 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  glue          1.4.2   2020-08-27 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  highr         0.9     2021-04-16 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  htmltools     0.5.2   2021-08-25 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  knitr         1.36    2021-09-29 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  lifecycle     1.0.1   2021-09-24 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  magrittr      2.0.1   2020-11-17 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  pillar        1.6.4   2021-10-18 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  pkgconfig     2.0.3   2019-09-22 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  purrr         0.3.4   2020-04-17 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  R.cache       0.15.0  2021-04-30 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  R.methodsS3   1.8.1   2020-08-26 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  R.oo          1.24.0  2020-08-26 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  R.utils       2.11.0  2021-09-26 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  reprex        2.0.1   2021-08-05 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  rlang         0.4.12  2021-10-18 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  rmarkdown     2.11    2021-09-14 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  rstudioapi    0.13    2020-11-12 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  sessioninfo   1.2.1   2021-11-02 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  stringi       1.7.5   2021-10-04 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  stringr       1.4.0   2019-02-10 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  styler        1.6.2   2021-09-23 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  tibble        3.1.5   2021-09-30 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  utf8          1.2.2   2021-07-24 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  vctrs         0.3.8   2021-04-29 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  withr         2.4.2   2021-04-18 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  xfun          0.27    2021-10-18 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#>  yaml          2.2.1   2020-02-01 [2] CRAN (R 4.0.1)
#> 
#>  [1] <...>
#>  [2] <...>
#>  [3] <...>
#> 
#> ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

[banfai]

@idavydov it's not a problem with lazy evaluation (because it's working properly when there's no msg), but a problem with the propagation of msg from the inner to the outer see #71 for a fix