except clause syntax question

[Mel Wilson]

Charles Yeomans wrote:

> To catch more than one exception type in an except block, one writes
> 
> except (A, B, C) as e:
> 
> I'm wondering why it was decided to match tuples, but not lists:
> 
> except [A, B, C] as e:
> 
> The latter makes more sense semantically to me -- "catch all exception
> types in a list" as opposed to "catch this single thing composed of three
> exception types".

On reflection, it seems to hint at a style that Python extensions were made 
in.  (IIRC) the first operand in an `except` statement was originally just 
an arbitrary marker to identify the exception.  Unique string values were 
customary, although the Python library defined things with standard 
exception names.  Using a string means that general exceptions weren't to be 
collected in general sequences; `except "Serious Error"` was never meant to 
catch `raise "r"`.  If only tuples were used for collections, it would 
create havoc for fewer of any weirdos who had used strange markers of their 
own devising.

It looks like tuples were chosen as the most "lightweight", or maybe least 
intrusive, sequence type to require to denote a collection of exceptions.

You see a similar decision, with the opposite emphasis, with the string 
modulo operator.  The second operand is supposed to be a tuple, but if the 
template string needs only one value, then the rules are relaxed and any 
single non-tuple value is used as-is.


	Mel.