Source Maps Are Here!

In the previous blog post I talked about the exciting new feature of highlighting exactly where the error is, in your code. The fact that this is even possible to do externally, is the kind of stuff that distinguishes JavaScript from all other languages. It is why Errorception has this singular focus on JavaScript.

This post is to highlight one more such feature — source maps.

If you have errors in your minified code and Errorception's crawler discovers a source-map file associated with your code, it downloads the source-map file and your associated original source files, and versions & saves it in Errorception's file store. After that, all the goodness of pointing out the error isn't just applied to your minified file, but also to your original source-code.

Mapped! Showing you the error in your un-minified source!

Errorception shows you exactly where the error is in your original, unminified source-code. Not just that, it does all of this automatically, and across all your stack frames! Isn't that just awesome?

You just need to make your source-map file available, and Errorception will do the rest. The tweaks needed to your build script are real simple too — it's usually just a flag in most minifiers.

Your minified code is just a click away. Note the tabs at the top-right of your code.

Source maps have been around for some time now. However, I didn't want to implement source maps just so Errorception could wear it as a badge — I wanted to make it actually useful to you. The previous release was a step in this direction — putting your code front and center, and pointing out exactly where the error was in your deployed code. Now, source-maps completes this by not only pointing out exactly the token that caused the error, but also by doing so in your original unminified source file.

Oh, and of course, this also means that Errorception now supports compile-to-JS languages as well. CoffeeScript, TypeScript, ClojureScript and others, welcome to Errorception! You should feel at home.

As always, suggestions and feedback always welcome. Mail, Tweet, or leave a comment below.