Performance concerns about wrapping every method with "try catch" in JavaScript - javascript

I want to know your opinions on a function I made, that wraps every method of an object, adding "try catch" handlers to log JavaScript errors on server side.
I don't want to use window.onerror, because of this security restriction, and my scripts are going to be hosted on a different domain on a CDN.
/*
* object: Object to be wrapped
* errorHandler: Instance of ErrorHandler Object
*/
function addLog(object, errorHandler) {
var name, method;
for (name in object) {
method = object[name];
if (typeof method === "function") {
object[name] = function(method, name) {
return function() {
try {
return method.apply(this, arguments);
} catch (ex) {
ex.message += "; method: '" + name + "'";
errorHandler.addToStack(ex.message);
throw ex;
}
};
}(method, name);
}
}
return object;
}
errorHandler.addToStack is a method on a custom object that asynchronously sends error reports to a server using Ajax messages.
I want to wrap every object instantiated on my application with this function, but I'm not sure if:
Is this a bad practice?
Does it has performance issues?
Are there's a better ways for doing this?
Thanks in advance!

I think that the best way is to avoid try catch statements by preventing errors to occur adding validations and checks, but if you really need to do it this way, I don't think it will have a great performance issue.
Here I made a jspref test to measure it, and the difference shows only in IE, but it's not very significant.
I don't know if the errorHandler method has performance problems or slows down your code, but if it is async, I guess it won't be a problem.

Unlike stricter codes like Java, Javascript doesn't require try/catch for most objects instanciated. It tends to simply just not work if something goes wrong, and doesn't explode or end on you.
Some parts do however end the function, so a better method would be to surround the code as a whole with a try/catch, so that it fails silently, and use the catch to recall the original code while sending off an error report.

you can still send log to server using a global try/catch because exception objects contains the information.
however error object is not standard among browsers, i think

Related

Cypress how to store values yielded by a function into a variable

This has been bugging me from a long time. I am not well versed with javascript. Here it goes:
How do i store return value of a function into a variable:
lenValue = cy.get(selector).children().length
Above line of code returns undefined But when i try following in cypress test runner console then I get a valid output:
cy.$$(selector).children().length --> gives me correct number
How to return value from inside a then function and catch it to reuse later:
file1.js
function a(selector, attrName){
cy.get(selector).then(function ($el){
return $el.attr(attrName));
}
file2.js
state = file1Obj.a('#name','name')
What you're doing makes complete sense, but simply put, you cannot. (per the docs).
https://docs.cypress.io/guides/core-concepts/variables-and-aliases/#Return-Values
You can, however, use aliases to accomplish what (I think) you're after.
https://docs.cypress.io/guides/core-concepts/variables-and-aliases/#Aliases
#aeischeid shows you the wrong way to do it.
His code works only for a static site, but web pages are rarely static. As soon as API fetches are involved, lucky timing goes out the window and the test bombs.
This is why Cypress commands have automatic retry. Otherwise we could just build tests with jQuery.
Since cy.$$(selector).children().length --> gives me correct number, use that inside the helper function.
function a(selector, attrName) {
return cy.$$(selector).attr(attrName); // jQuery methods used
}
Or
function a(selector, attrName) {
return Cypress.$(selector).attr(attrName); // jQuery methods used
}
But be aware that jQuery only handles static pages, it does not retry if the attribute that you want to query arrives slowly.
For that use a command
cy.get('#name')
.should('have.attr', 'name') // retries until name exists
.then(name => { // guaranteed to have a value
// use name here
})
Here is a example from a cypress test I have that seems pretty relevant
let oldDescription;
cy.get('input#description').should(($input) => {
oldDescription = $input.val();
});
let randomDescription = Math.random().toString(36).substring(7);
cy.get('input#description').clear().type(randomDescription);
cy.get('input#description')
.parents('.ant-table-row')
.contains('Save').click();
cy.get('input#description').should('not.exist');
cy.contains(`${randomDescription}`);
cy.contains(`${oldDescription}`).should('not.exist');
because oldDescription is set inside of an asyncronous callback it isn't safe to expect it to be set, farther down the code outside of that callback, but in a lot of cases with cypress you end up having some other .get call or thing that waits, effectively pausing the code long enough that you can get away with not worrying about it.

Is there a way to `goog.provide` something without using the global object?

Using the global object for this has been problematic for me. Here is a simple example that illustrates my problem:
In a.js:
goog.provide('app.a');
goog.require('app.b');
app.a = function () {
return [
app.b('Hey, there!'),
app.c('yo')
];
};
Note in the above file, I am using app.c without explicitly requiring it.
In b.js:
goog.provide('app.b');
goog.require('app.c');
app.b = function (msg) {
return app.c('b ' + msg);
};
In c.js:
goog.provide('app.c');
app.c = function (msg) {
return { msg: msg };
};
I can run this through closurebuilder and it will run just fine. It will also run without error in the browser. But I don't like how app.c is usable without being explicitly required.
The best solution I can think of is if each file could somehow use its own copy of the app global variable that is built up from the goog.require calls. This would result in runtime errors when you try to use something that wasn't required. Not sure if this is possible.
Is there a way to do what I described, or is there some alternative?
There's no reason not to put a require for app.c in app.a, and that is a best practice but yeah it won't catch it if you don't because of the way requirements are harvested by the compiler. It would throw an error if you removed the app.b requirement, just one of the many, many, many quirks of closure land.

Overriding external object's function using JavaScript in Internet Explorer

I am currently working on an IE-only project which makes use of an external object model provided by the host application. Internet Explorer allows access to this external object through browser components:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/ms535246(v=vs.85).aspx
Access to the object takes the form of JavaScript function invocations, similar to:
external.MethodName(arg1, arg2);
One of the recent changes to the application flow will introduce hundreds, if not thousands of if-statement conditionals around these JavaScript invocations, e.g.:
if (X) {
external.MethodName(arg1, arg2);
} else {
// do something else
}
Rather than modify potentially thousands of HTML files, it would seem to make sense if we could override or rewrite the external object's functions so that the if condition only appears in one place. Normally, this could be accomplished in JavaScript with:
external.OldMethodName = external.MethodName;
external.MethodName = function(arg1, arg2) {
if (X) {
external.OldMethodName(arg1, arg2);
} else {
// do something else
}
};
However, this results in an "Invalid procedure call or argument" script error, because you cannot reference the external host method this way.
I do not have access to the host application proprietary code to change the external method directly.
Is there any way I can use JavaScript to override the external object's functions, or will I need to wrap the (potential) thousands of invocations with if-statements (a very bad practice)?
UPDATE: After much back-and-forth with the client, we have managed to reach out to the third-party vendor to update the external host method, which is vastly preferable to our method of wrapping the method on the front end. I have accepted Paul's answer in the meantime.
Use toString() and eval:
var foo = external.MethodName.toString().replace("OldMethodName", "MethodName").replace("bar","baz");
eval(foo);
if(x)
{
external.OldMethodName(arg1,arg2);
}
else
{
MethodName(arg1,arg2)
}

Wrapping Backbone sync requests

I am writing a Backbone application, and I need to offer some feedback to users whenever a request to the server is made (annoying, I know, but I have no control over this behaviour of the application). The backend always reports an informative (at least in theory) message with every response, like
{
"status":"error",
"message":"something went really wrong"
}
or
{
"status":"success",
"message":"congratulations",
"data":{...}
}
What I would like to understand is where to put a hook for some kind of messaging service.
One possibility is the parse() method for models and collections. To avoid duplication, I would have to put it inside some model base class. It is still a bit annoying since all models and collections have their own parse() anyway.
A more reasonable place to look would be the Backbone.sync function. But I do not want to overwrite it, instead I would like to wrap it inside some other helper function. The problem here is that I cannot find a good hook where to put some logic to be executed with every request.
Do you have any suggestions on how to organize some piece of logic to be executed with every request?
Since Backbone.sync returns whatever $.ajax returns, it is easy to achieve what I want by using jQuery delegates, like this
var originalMethod = Backbone.sync;
Backbone.sync = function(method, model, options) {
var request = originalMethod.call(Backbone, method, model, options);
request.done(function(msg) {
console.log(msg);
});
request.fail(function(jqXHR, textStatus) {
console.log(jqXHR, textStatus);
});
return request;
};
Assuming you are using a recent (>1.5) jquery all results from sync will return the $.ajax promise.
You can do it then without overriding anything in sync by using that promise. For example, if you did a fetch(), you could do:
var p = mymodel.fetch();
p.done(function (res) { ... });
p.fail(function (err) { ... });
Of course you can also use callbacks in fetch options, but I find the above much cleaner. The same pattern applies for say save or anything that uses sync.

Is it possible to sandbox JavaScript running in the browser?

I'm wondering if it's possible to sandbox JavaScript running in the browser to prevent access to features that are normally available to JavaScript code running in an HTML page.
For example, let's say I want to provide a JavaScript API for end users to let them define event handlers to be run when "interesting events" happen, but I don't want those users to access the properties and functions of the window object. Am I able to do this?
In the simplest case, let's say I want to prevent users calling alert. A couple of approaches I can think of are:
Redefine window.alert globally. I don't think this would be a valid approach because other code running in the page (i.e., stuff not authored by users in their event handlers) might want to use alert.
Send the event handler code to the server to process. I'm not sure that sending the code to the server to process is the right approach, because the event handlers need to run in the context of the page.
Perhaps a solution where the server processes the user defined function and then generates a callback to be executed on the client would work? Even if that approach works, are there better ways to solve this problem?
Google Caja is a source-to-source translator that "allows you to put untrusted third-party HTML and JavaScript inline in your page and still be secure."
Have a look at Douglas Crockford's ADsafe:
ADsafe makes it safe to put guest code (such as third party scripted advertising or widgets) on any web page. ADsafe defines a subset of JavaScript that is powerful enough to allow guest code to perform valuable interactions, while at the same time preventing malicious or accidental damage or intrusion. The ADsafe subset can be verified mechanically by tools like JSLint so that no human inspection is necessary to review guest code for safety. The ADsafe subset also enforces good coding practices, increasing the likelihood that guest code will run correctly.
You can see an example of how to use ADsafe by looking at the template.html and template.js files in the project's GitHub repository.
I created a sandboxing library called jsandbox that uses web workers to sandbox evaluated code. It also has an input method for explicitly giving sandboxed code data it wouldn't otherwise be able to get.
The following is an example of the API:
jsandbox
.eval({
code : "x=1;Math.round(Math.pow(input, ++x))",
input : 36.565010597564445,
callback: function(n) {
console.log("number: ", n); // number: 1337
}
}).eval({
code : "][];.]\\ (*# ($(! ~",
onerror: function(ex) {
console.log("syntax error: ", ex); // syntax error: [error object]
}
}).eval({
code : '"foo"+input',
input : "bar",
callback: function(str) {
console.log("string: ", str); // string: foobar
}
}).eval({
code : "({q:1, w:2})",
callback: function(obj) {
console.log("object: ", obj); // object: object q=1 w=2
}
}).eval({
code : "[1, 2, 3].concat(input)",
input : [4, 5, 6],
callback: function(arr) {
console.log("array: ", arr); // array: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
}
}).eval({
code : "function x(z){this.y=z;};new x(input)",
input : 4,
callback: function(x) {
console.log("new x: ", x); // new x: object y=4
}
});
An improved version of RyanOHara's web workers sandbox code, in a single file (no extra eval.js file is necessary).
function safeEval(untrustedCode)
{
return new Promise(function (resolve, reject)
{
var blobURL = URL.createObjectURL(new Blob([
"(",
function ()
{
var _postMessage = postMessage;
var _addEventListener = addEventListener;
(function (obj)
{
"use strict";
var current = obj;
var keepProperties =
[
// Required
'Object', 'Function', 'Infinity', 'NaN', 'undefined', 'caches', 'TEMPORARY', 'PERSISTENT',
// Optional, but trivial to get back
'Array', 'Boolean', 'Number', 'String', 'Symbol',
// Optional
'Map', 'Math', 'Set',
];
do
{
Object.getOwnPropertyNames(current).forEach(function (name)
{
if (keepProperties.indexOf(name) === -1)
{
delete current[name];
}
});
current = Object.getPrototypeOf(current);
}
while (current !== Object.prototype)
;
})(this);
_addEventListener("message", function (e)
{
var f = new Function("", "return (" + e.data + "\n);");
_postMessage(f());
});
}.toString(),
")()"],
{type: "application/javascript"}));
var worker = new Worker(blobURL);
URL.revokeObjectURL(blobURL);
worker.onmessage = function (evt)
{
worker.terminate();
resolve(evt.data);
};
worker.onerror = function (evt)
{
reject(new Error(evt.message));
};
worker.postMessage(untrustedCode);
setTimeout(function ()
{
worker.terminate();
reject(new Error('The worker timed out.'));
}, 1000);
});
}
Test it:
https://jsfiddle.net/kp0cq6yw/
var promise = safeEval("1+2+3");
promise.then(function (result) {
alert(result);
});
It should output 6 (tested in Chrome and Firefox).
As mentioned in other responces, it's enough to jail the code in a sandboxed iframe (without sending it to the server-side) and communicate with messages.
I would suggest to take a look at a small library I created mostly because of the need to providing some API to the untrusted code, just like as described in the question: there's an opportunity to export the particular set of functions right into the sandbox where the untrusted code runs. And there's also a demo which executes the code submitted by a user in a sandbox:
http://asvd.github.io/jailed/demos/web/console/
I think that js.js is worth mentioning here. It's a JavaScript interpreter written in JavaScript.
It's about 200 times slower than native JavaScript, but its nature makes it a perfect sandbox environment. Another drawback is its size – almost 600 KB, which may be acceptable for desktops in some cases, but not for mobile devices.
All the browser vendors and the HTML5 specification are working towards an actual sandbox property to allow sandboxed iframes -- but it's still limited to iframe granularity.
In general, no degree of regular expressions, etc. can safely sanitise arbitrary user provided JavaScript as it degenerates to the halting problem :-/
An ugly way, but maybe this works for you:
I took all the globals and redefined them in the sandbox scope, as well I added the strict mode so they can't get the global object using an anonymous function.
function construct(constructor, args) {
function F() {
return constructor.apply(this, args);
}
F.prototype = constructor.prototype;
return new F();
}
// Sanboxer
function sandboxcode(string, inject) {
"use strict";
var globals = [];
for (var i in window) {
// <--REMOVE THIS CONDITION
if (i != "console")
// REMOVE THIS CONDITION -->
globals.push(i);
}
globals.push('"use strict";\n'+string);
return construct(Function, globals).apply(inject ? inject : {});
}
sandboxcode('console.log( this, window, top , self, parent, this["jQuery"], (function(){return this;}()));');
// => Object {} undefined undefined undefined undefined undefined undefined
console.log("return of this", sandboxcode('return this;', {window:"sanboxed code"}));
// => Object {window: "sanboxed code"}
https://gist.github.com/alejandrolechuga/9381781
An independent JavaScript interpreter is more likely to yield a robust sandbox than a caged version of the built-in browser implementation.
Ryan has already mentioned js.js, but a more up-to-date project is JS-Interpreter. The documentation covers how to expose various functions to the interpreter, but its scope is otherwise very limited.
As of 2019, vm2 looks like the most popular and most regularly-updated solution to running JavaScript in Node.js. I'm not aware of a front-end solution.
With NISP you'll be able to do sandboxed evaluation.
Though the expression you write is not exactly JavaScript code, instead you'll write S-expressions. It is ideal for simple DSLs that doesn't demand extensive programming.
Suppose you have code to execute:
var sCode = "alert(document)";
Now, suppose you want to execute it in a sandbox:
new Function("window", "with(window){" + sCode + "}")({});
These two lines when executed will fail, because "alert" function is not available from the "sandbox"
And now you want to expose a member of window object with your functionality:
new Function("window", "with(window){" + sCode + "}")({
'alert':function(sString){document.title = sString}
});
Indeed you can add quotes escaping and make other polishing, but I guess the idea is clear.
Where is this user JavaScript code coming from?
There is not much you can do about a user embedding code into your page and then calling it from their browser (see Greasemonkey). It's just something browsers do.
However, if you store the script in a database, then retrieve it and eval() it, then you can clean up the script before it is run.
Examples of code that removes all window. and document. references:
eval(
unsafeUserScript
.replace(/\/\/.+\n|\/\*.*\*\/, '') // Clear all comments
.replace(/\s(window|document)\s*[\;\)\.]/, '') // Removes window. Or window; or window)
)
This tries to prevent the following from being executed (not tested):
window.location = 'http://example.com';
var w = window;
There are a lot of limitations you would have to apply to the unsafe user script. Unfortunately, there isn't any 'sandbox container' available for JavaScript.
I've been working on a simplistic JavaScript sandbox for letting users build applets for my site. Although I still face some challenges with allowing DOM access (parentNode just won't let me keep things secure =/), my approach was just to redefine the window object with some of its useful/harmless members, and then eval() the user code with this redefined window as the default scope.
My "core" code goes like this... (I'm not showing it entirely ;)
function Sandbox(parent){
this.scope = {
window: {
alert: function(str){
alert("Overriden Alert: " + str);
},
prompt: function(message, defaultValue){
return prompt("Overriden Prompt:" + message, defaultValue);
},
document: null,
.
.
.
.
}
};
this.execute = function(codestring){
// Here some code sanitizing, please
with (this.scope) {
with (window) {
eval(codestring);
}
}
};
}
So, I can instantiate a Sandbox and use its execute() function to get code running. Also, all new declared variables within eval'd code will ultimately bound to the execute() scope, so there will not be clashing names or messing with existing code.
Although global objects will still be accessible, those which should remain unknown to the sandboxed code must be defined as proxies in the Sandbox::scope object.
You can wrap the user's code in a function that redefines forbidden objects as parameters -- these would then be undefined when called:
(function (alert) {
alert ("uh oh!"); // User code
}) ();
Of course, clever attackers can get around this by inspecting the JavaScript DOM and finding a non-overridden object that contains a reference to the window.
Another idea is scanning the user's code using a tool like JSLint. Make sure it's set to have no preset variables (or: only variables you want), and then if any globals are set or accessed do not let the user's script be used. Again, it might be vulnerable to walking the DOM -- objects that the user can construct using literals might have implicit references to the window object that could be accessed to escape the sandbox.

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