[Python-ideas] Make return inside a finally a SyntaxError

[Guido van Rossum]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Michael<fuzzyman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here are two examples of why allowing return inside a finally block is a bad
> idea:
>
> def f():
>  try:
>    return 3
>  finally:
>    return 4
>
> def f():
>  try:
>    raise Exception()
>  finally:
>    return 4

Well, too bad. As others have (gently) tried to point out, there will
always remain a gray area for what should be accepted and what
shouldn't. Feel free to put in your company's style guide that this is
a bad idea. In most cases it probably is. But I don't think the parser
should police this particular issue. (And were you surprised anyway?
Since you agree that an exception raised in a finally block has
well-defined semantics, why wouldn't a return statement?)

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)