[Python-Dev] more pyref: continue in finally statements

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> the language reference says:
> 
>     continue may only occur syntactically nested in a for or while loop,
>     but not nested in a function or class definition or finally statement
>     within that loop. /.../
> 
>     It may occur within an except or else clause. The restriction on occurring
>     in the try clause is implementor's laziness and will eventually be lifted.
> 
> and it looks like the new compiler still has the same issue:
> 
>     $ python test.py
>         File "test.py", line 5:
>             continue
>     SyntaxError: 'continue' not supported inside 'finally' clause
> 
> how hard would it be to fix this ?
> 
> (shouldn't the "try clause" in the note read "finally clause", btw?  "continue"
> within the "try" suite seem to work just fine...)

For the latter: the documentation apparently wasn't fully updated in
r19260: it only changed ref7.tex, but not ref6.tex. IOW, it really
means to say "in the try clause", and it is out-of-date in saying so.

As for "continue in the 'finally' clause: What would that mean?
Given

def f():
  raise Exception

while 1:
  try:
    f()
  finally:
    g()
    continue

then what should be the meaning of "continue" here? The finally
block *eventually* needs to re-raise the exception. When should
that happen?

So I would say: It's very easy to fix, just change the message to

     SyntaxError: 'continue' not allowed inside 'finally' clause

:-)

Regards,
Martin