window defensiveness

[LewisJEllis]

In these initialization lines:

var _window = typeof window !== 'undefined' ? window : undefined;
var _document = _window && _window.document;

the second line appears to be defensive against the possibility that window is undefined (note also that unless I'm mistaken, the first line is semantically equivalent to var _window = window;).

Later lines, however, are not similarly defensive, with

this._originalConsole = _window.console || {};
...
this._location = _window.location;

in the Raven constructor and

var RavenConfig = _window.RavenConfig;

in afterLoad. We also do

var _Raven = window.Raven;

in singleton.js.

I know we care about working if document doesn't exist, but do we care about being defensive against window not existing? If so, we should also be defensive in these other spots; if not, we shouldn't bother pretending in the _document declaration. Either way, we can simplify the _window declaration.

/cc @benvinegar

[benvinegar]

If I recall, this was because window doesn't exist in React Native apps. I could be wrong about that (it might've just been document).

[LewisJEllis]

Right, document doesn't exist in react native apps, which is why we're defensive against that, but do we care about any environments where window doesn't exist? I don't have a compelling example, but right now if window doesn't exist raven-js blows up.

[benvinegar]

shrug

FWIW, this is not a pressing issue.

[LewisJEllis]

I know :p

Mainly writing it down on the off chance that it becomes relevant with electron investigation.

[joerick]

Hello! Just tried to integrate this into my Electron app by chucking the following code in my main process

const Raven = require('raven-js');
Raven.config('https://622ec62626b041adeadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeef@sentry.io/100000').install()

Getting the following error:

Guessing the defensiveness should be extended to singleton.js?

[LewisJEllis]

Electron integration is gonna be a bit trickier because we need to have both node and browser stuff going on. I don't think blindly throwing one or the other in somewhere is going to work too well at the moment, but right now you're throwing raven for browsers into what's essentially just a node process. You might have more luck throwing raven-js in a renderer process or throwing raven-node in the main process, but I haven't played with raven+electron enough yet to have much confidence in the expected behavior of either of those.

[joerick]

Thanks, yeah I've been doing a little more digging and it seems the problems extend beyond singleton.js. I'll do a little experimentation using raven-node in the main process like you said. Apologies for derailing discussion!

[LewisJEllis]

Fixed by #785.