Mastering Debugging: Techniques for Efficient Code Diagnosis/

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Tools and Product Features to Troubleshoot Environments

Tools and Product Features to Troubleshoot Environments

Learn how to build tools and product features that will pinpoint environmental issues.

We'll cover the following...

In this lesson, we’ll explore a list of design strategies, tools, and features that can help us narrow down environmental issues better.

Design strategies

Typically, one can think of a software module as being made of two parts. The first part fetches or writes data using APIs that talk to external entities, and the second part processes or collects data that is to be used for making these external calls. Designing an interface that abstracts the component that talks to the external entity is usually good. This clear distinction makes it easy to narrow down, monitor, and even test individual components. When debugging an issue, if we have narrowed down the issue to a subcomponent around a particular module, we can test the mock of the external entity’s interface and make it behave very closely to the one where a bug is seen and verify the component that talks to the external entity. This method, though it depends a lot on the design of the system, can prove to be very effective.

Go (1.19.0)
package main
import (
	"fmt"
	"time"
)
// PaymentGateway represents the interface to an external payment gateway.
type PaymentGateway interface {
	Charge(amount float64) (string, error)
}
// PayPalGateway represents the real implementation of the payment gateway interface.
type PayPalGateway struct{}
// Charge simulates charging an amount via PayPal.
func (p *PayPalGateway) Charge(amount float64) (string, error) {
	// Simulate charging the amount via PayPal.
	time.Sleep(2 * time.Second)
	return fmt.Sprintf("Payment of $%.2f processed successfully via PayPal", amount), nil
}
// PaymentProcessor represents the payment processing service.
type PaymentProcessor struct {
	PaymentGateway PaymentGateway
}
// ProcessPayment processes the payment, calculates additional fees, etc.
func (p *PaymentProcessor) ProcessPayment(amount float64) (string, error) {
	// Charge the payment using the payment gateway.
	paymentReceipt, err := p.PaymentGateway.Charge(amount)
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	// Additional processing logic, e.g., calculating fees, updating records, etc.
	processingFee := amount * 0.03
	totalAmount := amount + processingFee
	// Return a receipt with additional information.
	receipt := fmt.Sprintf("%s\nProcessing Fee: $%.2f\nTotal Amount: $%.2f", paymentReceipt, processingFee, totalAmount)
	return receipt, nil
}
// MockPaymentGateway represents a mock implementation of the payment gateway for testing.
type MockPaymentGateway struct{}
// Charge simulates charging an amount via a mocked payment gateway.
func (m *MockPaymentGateway) Charge(amount float64) (string, error) {
	// Simulate charging the amount via the mocked payment gateway.
	return fmt.Sprintf("Mock Payment of $%.2f processed successfully", amount), nil
}
func main() {
	// Testing scenario with mock
	mockPaymentGateway := &MockPaymentGateway{}
	mockPaymentProcessor := PaymentProcessor{PaymentGateway: mockPaymentGateway}
	mockAmount := 150.0
	mockReceipt, _ := mockPaymentProcessor.ProcessPayment(mockAmount)
	fmt.Println("\nTesting Scenario with Mock:")
	fmt.Println(mockReceipt)
}

The provided code exemplifies the separation of concerns and the use of interfaces to abstract interactions with external entities:

The code is divided into two main parts:

  • Payment processing logic: This part is encapsulated within the PaymentProcessor struct and is responsible for calculating fees, processing payments, and handling the business logic associated ...