try blocks in Python vs. C++
Sean 'Shaleh' Perry
shalehperry at attbi.com
Thu Sep 5 20:11:42 EDT 2002
On Thursday 05 September 2002 16:53, Roy Smith wrote:
> I'm reading Stroustroup's C++ book, and came upon a piece of advice to
> avoid using try blocks. I use try blocks a lot in Python and gather
> it's common practice among pythonistas.
>
> Is there something fundamentally different about try blocks in Python
> and C++ which makes them more attractive to use in one vs. the other?
> On the surface, they appear to be virtually identical in just about
> every respect. Is it simply a cultural difference? Or just the
> author's own personal style?
If I recall, Stroustrup's advice is to let higher level code deal with errors
and not to avoid try's entirely. The python equivalent would be:
def func():
...
...
i_may_except
...
...
try:
func()
except ....:
...
if you write code like:
def func():
try:
do this
except ...:
...
try:
do that
except ...:
...
it is no better than the old style of testing each and every function call's
return value. You spend more time reading and writing error handling code
than anything else.
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