
[Thomas Wouters]
... Right, I don't really want them in if/else blocks, you're right. Try/except would be nice, though.
Can you give a specific example of why it would be nice? Since this is a compile-time gimmick, I can't imagine that it would do anything but confuse the essential nature of this gimmick. Note that you *can* do excuciating stuff like: try: import __future__ except: import real_old_fangled_code as guacamole else: if hasattr(__future__, "nested_scopes"): import new_fangled_code as guacamole else: import old_fangled_code as guacamole but in such a case I expect I'd be much happier just keying off sys.hexversion, or, even better, running a tiny inline test case to *see* what the semantics are. [Jeremy]
Presumably all versions of Python after and including 2.1 will know about __future__. In those cases, the compiler will complain if feature is no defined. The complaint can be fairly specific: "__future__ feature curly_braces is not defined."
[back to Thomas]
Will this be a warning, or an error/exception ?
A compile-time exception: when you're asking for semantics the compiler can't give you, the presumption has to favor that you're in big trouble. You can't catch such an exception directly in the same module (because it occurs at compile time), but can catch it if you import the module from elsewhere. But I *suspect* you're trying to solve a problem this stuff isn't intended to address, which is why a specific example would really help.