Add a VmListener and IsolateTest class for running tests in other isolates.

lib/src/remote_exception.dart

+// Copyright (c) 2015, the Dart project authors.  Please see the AUTHORS file
+// for details. All rights reserved. Use of this source code is governed by a
+// BSD-style license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
+
+library unittest.remote_exception;
+
+import 'dart:async';
+
+import 'package:stack_trace/stack_trace.dart';
+
+import 'expect.dart';
+
+/// An exception that was thrown remotely.
+///
+/// This could be an exception thrown in a different isolate, a different
+/// process, or on an entirely different computer.
+class RemoteException implements Exception {
+  /// The original exception's message, if it had one.
+  ///
+  /// If the original exception was a plain string, this will contain that
+  /// string.
+  final String message;
+
+  /// The value of the original exception's `runtimeType.toString()`.
+  final String type;
+
+  /// The value of the original exception's `toString()`.
+  final String _toString;
+
+  /// Serializes [error] and [stackTrace] into a JSON-safe object.
+  ///
+  /// Other than JSON- and isolate-safety, no guarantees are made about the

[kevmoo, 2015/02/12 02:24:29]

Comments about what's expected for [error]?

String or object w/ 'message' property?

[nweiz, 2015/02/12 19:03:41]

Any error object—which is to say, theoretically any object at all—is allowed.
That's why it catches [NoMethodError] if [error.message] isn't defined.

+  /// serialized format.
+  static serialize(error, StackTrace stackTrace) {
+    var message;
+    if (error is String) {
+      message = error;
+    } else {
+      try {
+        message = error.message.toString();
+      } on NoSuchMethodError catch (_) {
+        // Do nothing.

[kevmoo, 2015/02/12 02:24:29]

Fall back to message.toString()?

[nweiz, 2015/02/12 19:03:41]

If we're here, there is no message property.

+      }
+    }
+
+    return {
+      'message': message,
+      'type': error.runtimeType.toString(),
+      'toString': error.toString(),
+      'stackChain': new Chain.forTrace(stackTrace).toString()
+    };
+  }
+
+  /// Deserializes an exception serialized with [RemoteException.serialize].
+  ///
+  /// The returned [AsyncError] is guaranteed to have a [RemoteException] as its
+  /// error and a [Chain] as its stack trace.
+  static AsyncError deserialize(serialized) {
+    var exception;
+    if (serialized['type'] == 'TestFailure') {

[kevmoo, 2015/02/12 02:24:29]

You could be a bit more clever coordinating between this method and serialize
WRT checking for an instance of TestFailure.

Are we telling folks not to subclass TestFailure, for instance?

[nweiz, 2015/02/12 19:03:41]

Good point. Done.

+      exception = new RemoteTestFailure._(serialized['message']);
+    } else {
+      exception = new RemoteException._(
+          serialized['message'],
+          serialized['type'],
+          serialized['toString']);
+    }
+
+    return new AsyncError(exception, new Chain.parse(serialized['stackChain']));
+  }
+
+  RemoteException._(this.message, this.type, this._toString);
+
+  String toString() => _toString;
+}
+
+/// A subclass of [RemoteException] that implements [TestFailure].
+///
+/// It's important to preserve [TestFailure]-ness, because tests have different
+/// results depending on whether an exception was a failure or an error.
+class RemoteTestFailure implements TestFailure, RemoteException {

[kevmoo, 2015/02/12 02:24:29]

Analyzer complains that this class does not implement _toString from
RemoteException

Ugh. 

[nweiz, 2015/02/12 19:03:41]

Done.

+  final String message;
+  final type = "TestFailure";

[kevmoo, 2015/02/12 02:24:29]

Could this be a property? Avoid allocating a String for each instance.

Also: type String

[nweiz, 2015/02/12 19:03:41]

I removed this, but:

On 2015/02/12 02:24:29, kevmoo wrote:
The language semantics don't define any difference between assigning a final
instance variable and defining a getter here. Given that, I'm only concerned
with which one reads better; if there's a meaningful performance difference,
it's the VM's job to choose the better implementation.
The type is clear from the initializing expression.

+
+  RemoteTestFailure._(this.message);
+
+  String toString() => message;
+}