Is a crash more powerful than an Exit?

[Morthawt]

If there is something in your script that actually crashes the exe out, is that type of "exit" more powerful in terms of halting all operations that the exe was doing, than simply issuing an Exit command? For example, are there circumstances where Exit may fail or be delayed whereas a crash is instant or something?

[guinness]

Which language? As you posted in Developer Chat. Also do you mean hard crash or runtime error? Like exceptions in C#.

Edited October 9, 2014 by guinness

[Mobius]

Which language? As you posted in Developer Chat. Also do you mean hard crash or runtime error? Like exceptions in C#.

Since Morthawt mentioned a script one would assume they are referring to an AutoIt standalone.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Mobius

[JohnOne]

You mean intentionally?

Func _UngracefulExit()
    Local $a[1]
    MsgBox(0,0,$a[3])
EndFunc

[mLipok]

extended example

OnAutoItExitRegister('_My_Exit')

_UngracefulExit()
Func _UngracefulExit()
    Local $a[1]
    MsgBox(0, 0, $a[3])
EndFunc   ;==>_UngracefulExit

Func _My_Exit()
    MsgBox(0, '_my_Exit()', '@exitCode: ' & @exitCode & @CRLF & '@exitMethod: ' & @exitMethod)
EndFunc   ;==>_My_Exit

ps.

why @exitMethod = 0 >> "Natural closing."

[Morthawt]

I was indeed referring to AutoIt. Yes like if I can figure out what exactly is causing this crash, not just an unexpected thing that means the program needs to terminate but an actual crash of the exe. Would that be in any way more superior than an Exit command?

Edited October 9, 2014 by Morthawt

[mLipok]

Yes like if I can figure out what exactly is causing this crash, not just an unexpected thing that means the program needs to terminate but an actual crash of the exe.

 

you have hard crash ?

I mean with out any error like this:

 

OK

Line 5  (File "Z:TOOLsMacro_TESTtest_crash.exe"):

Error: Array variable has incorrect number of subscripts or subscript dimension range exceeded.

[JohnOne]

I really do not understand what you mean by "superior".

Please explain.

[Morthawt]

you have hard crash ?

I mean with out any error like this:

Yes, I guess you call it a hard crash. One minute it is working and the next it is dead.

I really do not understand what you mean by "superior".

Please explain.

Well, if there are circumstances where an Exit command may be delayed or I don't know.. I think of all kinds of things when things happen, I like to make the most of what ever I use. So if there would be a legitimate benefit to a hard crash then I would have another tool available to me or a gimmick. No idea. I am trying to figure out what exactly is causing it. I typed a lot of code before I did any testing, so it is a bit of a pain to keep removing parts until it does not crash.

Backhistory with a somewhat similar thing

Years ago, I used to make CounterStrike and CounterStrike Source maps. There are two types of things in there, brush objects and entities. Brush is things like hard wall and entities are interactive (potentially) things like chairs, tables, blocks that are made to be entities etc. Well I found a program that was able to selectively strip entities out of the map the client downloaded since entities are all created and processed server-side due to their interactive potential. Well I figured out a method where I could make my maps only work on my server and nobody else's. I made a little egg timer looking box, really small, a hollow cut into a little corner of the outside map brush and in there was a little pebble that would drop to the bottom of this hollow area and if it reached the bottom it would run a command or something I figured out that would crash the map, but on my server there was an entity blocking this pebble from reaching the bottom because it effectively cut this hollow into two chambers, so it was never a problem when people played the map on our server, but if they tried to steal it, it would just crash and never work for them, thus, it gave them the desire to keep coming back to our server because the maps were so great (I did the technical work and a friend did the visual work) and they couldn't steal them. /Backhistrory

That is the kind of thing I think when I figure something like that out, so since I am seeing a weird hard crash I am wondering if this could potentially be a useful thing in some strange way if I can figure out what exactly is causing it and it be something repeatable. Sure I can use exits and things but I had a flash back to those counterstrike days and it got me curious of potential uses, even though I do not even know the cause yet or if it is something I can do at will or just some freak incident.

[mLipok]

Q1:
What AutoIt Version ?
Q2:
What Windows System version ?
Q3:
Do you use any ActiveX object ?
 
EDIT:
Q4:

One minute it is working and the next it is dead.

Not responding or you have any message ?

Q5:

Exe is still in process list ?

Edited October 9, 2014 by mLipok

[guinness]

Since Morthawt mentioned a script one would assume they are referring to an AutoIt standalone.

Script isn't limited to just AutoIt, so I would rather asertain if it's AutoIt or not.

Morthawt,

If it "hard crashes" then it's terminated, thus Exit isn't even reached.

[JohnOne]

From what I can gather, the OP is asking what's the point of a crash? or Why is a crash better than an exit? or How can I make my crashing application a good thing?.

So errrm I haven't gathered much.

[Morthawt]

Q1:

What AutoIt Version ?

Q2:

What Windows System version ?

Q3:

Do you use any ActiveX object ?

 

EDIT:

Q4:

Not responding or you have any message ?

Q5:

Exe is still in process list ?

Latest stable version, Windows 7 x64 Professional, No.

 

From what I can gather, the OP is asking what's the point of a crash? or Why is a crash better than an exit? or How can I make my crashing application a good thing?.

So errrm I haven't gathered much.

Pretty much. Since I have seen a crash be useful in the situation I documented from my past, I am just trying to figure out if there is any benefit in having the program crash (either hard crash as I am experiencing or some error causing AutoIt to crash with a message as in JohnOne's example) vs gracefully exiting.

[BrewManNH]

A hard crash can cause files to be left open if you've accessed them. A hard crash is NEVER a good idea as a way to exit a program of any type, unless you're using the hard crash to test something that detects such poor programming.

[Morthawt]

A hard crash can cause files to be left open if you've accessed them. A hard crash is NEVER a good idea as a way to exit a program of any type, unless you're using the hard crash to test something that detects such poor programming.

Hmm, is it the same for a crash such as accessing an array entry past it's actual existent scope? Or that is only true of a hard crash?

[Morthawt]

Ok I tracked the problem to StringRegExp. It took me a while to round it down to try and find the simplest code that would trigger this because I could not just release the source for what I am working on because it was an idea I had to obfuscate code a bit, enough to make it more work to figure out, although that was not as successful as I had hoped. So here is the smallest most elegant code I could come up with that causes the hard crash.

Local $b
For $a = 1 To 6000
    $b &= 0
Next
ClipPut($b)
StringRegExp($b, '(.)*')

The pattern took me a while because mine was much longer and it took me quite a while to find the part which causes the problem. It is weird, if you remove the brackets it does not crash.

[BrewManNH]

Anything that causes the program to stop working before it exits on its own could cause a problem if you're accessing files before that happens and don't close them.Although with AutoIt, I'm not sure exactly how the exit process works for soft crashes.

[iamtheky]

Why not hard crash it yourself in a manner that you can reuse?  The first lines of your script write a separate file looping for  "If criteria X then taskkill /IM <processname>"

Edited October 9, 2014 by boththose

[guinness]

Hmm, is it the same for a crash such as accessing an array entry past it's actual existent scope?

That's not a hard crash, that's a runtime error, as mentioned in my first post. Both are totally different, with one being easily avoidable by coding properly.

If you get that dialogue box which says "Send to Microsoft", then you have a big problem on your hands and a lot of time debugging. If it's an Autoit error syntax box, then they're pretty easy to fix.

[Morthawt]

That's not a hard crash, that's a runtime error, as mentioned in my first post. Both are totally different, with one being easily avoidable by coding properly.

If you get that dialogue box which says "Send to Microsoft", then you have a big problem on your hands and a lot of time debugging. If it's an Autoit error syntax box, then they're pretty easy to fix.

If you scroll up I managed to figure out a short version to trigger the crash I was having, and yes it was a microsoft error showing information etc.