Can't minify with Combres and yui

Question

I am not sure how to find out more about whats wrong with my .js file, but if I turn "defaultDebugEnaled = true" then it works fine, but putting it to false makes me get this error

And I can't seem to toggle anything to make it give me a more specific error, I only know that it fails when trying to minify it.

Also this only happens when I include one certain file, but this is work so can't just post that file.

 Server Error in '/' Application.

 [ERROR] missing formal parameter

 Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. 

 Exception Details: System.InvalidOperationException: [ERROR] missing formal parameter

 Source Error: 

 An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

 Stack Trace: 


 [InvalidOperationException: [ERROR] missing formal parameter]
   Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.CustomErrorReporter.Error(String message, String sourceName, Int32 line, String lineSource, Int32 lineOffset) +61
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.AddError(String messageId) +94
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.ReportError(String messageId) +9
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.function(Int32 functionType) +700
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.parseFunctionBody() +138
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.function(Int32 functionType) +932
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.primaryExpr() +334
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.memberExpr(Boolean allowCallSyntax) +213
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.unaryExpr() +605
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.mulExpr() +16
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.addExpr() +16
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.shiftExpr() +16
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.relExpr(Boolean inForInit) +21
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.eqExpr(Boolean inForInit) +25
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.bitAndExpr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.bitXorExpr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.bitOrExpr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.andExpr(Boolean inForInit) +26
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.orExpr(Boolean inForInit) +26
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.condExpr(Boolean inForInit) +26
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.assignExpr(Boolean inForInit) +28
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.expr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.primaryExpr() +1233
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.memberExpr(Boolean allowCallSyntax) +213
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.unaryExpr() +605
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.mulExpr() +16
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.addExpr() +16
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.shiftExpr() +16
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.relExpr(Boolean inForInit) +21
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.eqExpr(Boolean inForInit) +25
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.bitAndExpr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.bitXorExpr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.bitOrExpr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.andExpr(Boolean inForInit) +26
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.orExpr(Boolean inForInit) +26
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.condExpr(Boolean inForInit) +26
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.assignExpr(Boolean inForInit) +28
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.expr(Boolean inForInit) +23
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.statementHelper(Node statementLabel) +9649
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.statement() +71
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.Parse() +333
   EcmaScript.NET.Parser.Parse(StreamReader sourceReader, String sourceURI, Int32 lineno) +64
   Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.JavaScriptCompressor.Parse(StreamReader stream, ErrorReporter reporter) +71
   Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.JavaScriptCompressor..ctor(String javaScript, Boolean isVerboseLogging, Encoding encoding, CultureInfo threadCulture, Boolean isEvalIgnored, ErrorReporter errorReporter) +391
   Yahoo.Yui.Compressor.JavaScriptCompressor.Compress(String javaScript, Boolean isVerboseLogging, Boolean isObfuscateJavascript, Boolean preserveAllSemicolons, Boolean disableOptimizations, Int32 lineBreakPosition, Encoding encoding, CultureInfo threadCulture, Boolean isEvalIgnored) +73
   Combres.Minifiers.YuiJSMinifier.Minify(Settings settings, ResourceSet resourceSet, String combinedContent) +355
   Combres.RequestProcessor.MinifyContent(MinifierInfo minifierInfo, IEnumerable`1 resources, String combinedContent) +340
   Combres.DefaultProcessingWorkflow.ProcessMergeGroup(ICollection`1 minifiedContents, IEnumerable`1 mergeGroup, MinifierInfo currentMinifier) +63
   Combres.DefaultProcessingWorkflow.Execute() +344
   Combres.RequestProcessor.Execute() +160
   Combres.CombresHandler.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context) +94
   System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +100
   System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +75

Answer 1

"Missing formal parameter" means that a function definition is missing a parameter. For example

/**
 * @param x ...
 * @param y ...
 */
function f(x) {  // Only one formal parameter.
  ...
}

f(1, 2);  // Called with 2 actual parameters.

the function f is missing a formal parameter y.

EDIT:

https://github.com/wycats/handlebars.js/issues/93 discusses a similar issue and suggests the problem is that YUI compressor treats certain JS identifiers (incorrectly) as reserved words and issues this error when a reserved word is used as a formal parameter

$ java -jar lib/closurecompiler.jar --js js/handlebars.1.0.0.beta.3.js 
js/handlebars.1.0.0.beta.3.js:667: ERROR - Parse error. missing formal parameter
Handlebars.AST.BooleanNode = function(boolean) {

I have a version that seems to be working in my fork. Main change was to remove reserved word with s/boolean/bool/g Also linted the input .js files for consistency.

Answer 2

This error can also appear when using parametres like this:

function functionName( markers, boolean )

In this case boolean will cause the error.

Answer 3

I had this same problem yesterday (which turned out to be 'long' used a parameter - i just renamed to longitude) - and the best approach for me was to feed the JS manually to these two tools: http://www.javascriptlint.com/online_lint.php and an online YUI compressor http://refresh-sf.com/yui/

between the two it was easy to find the errors and verify that it would compress.