[Python-Dev] Exception hierarchy [was Re: Another test_compiler
mystery]
Aahz
aahz at pythoncraft.com
Tue Aug 17 03:01:56 CEST 2004
On Mon, Aug 16, 2004, James Y Knight wrote:
>
> The criteria for whether a given exception should go under "Exception"
> or "FatalError" is whether users' code should generally catch the
> exception. Thus, at least "SystemExit", "KeyboardInterrupt", and
> "MemoryError" should go under "FatalError". Catching those is nearly
> never what you wanted to do when you write "except Exception:". There's
> likely more -- I have not gone through all the exceptions in Python to
> classify them.
>
> One issue is that creating a new category of Exceptions doesn't help
> people who do "except:" instead of "except Exception:". It is unlikely
> that person meant to catch things like MemoryError, rather, they were
> just being lazy. I suppose that syntax could be deprecated, at least in
> example code and documentation, in favor of "except Exception" for the
> usual case, and "except Raisable" for the cases where you do actually
> want to catch everything*.
We've already got StandardError; I think it makes more sense to
rearrange the exception hierarchy a bit to support your suggestion
rather than creating a whole new base class.
--
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
"To me vi is Zen. To use vi is to practice zen. Every command is a
koan. Profound to the user, unintelligible to the uninitiated. You
discover truth everytime you use it." --reddy at lion.austin.ibm.com
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