[Pythonmac-SIG] can't exit module

[Jack Jansen]

> Although I import the sys module the command sys.exit() doesn't work.
> Here is the most simple example:
> import sys
> 
> a= 7
> while a<10:
>     print 'this is the while loop'
>     a=a+1
>     if a==9:
>         print 'exiting'
>         sys.exit()
> 
> I always get the same error:
> SystemExit:
> Traceback (innermost last):
> File "Script 1", line 9, in ?
>       sys.exit()


You're right: sys.exit() doesn't work in the IDE. In the raw interpreter it 
works fine, and indeed exits the interpreter, but in the IDE it is unclear 
what it should do.

On the one hand exiting the IDE is a possible solution, and seems to be what 
you expected. On the other hand exiting may not be what you want: if you're 
running a script that was written for Unix (which doesn't have an IDE) calling 
sys.exit() will be the normal way of terminating the script, and you wouldn't 
want to terminate the IDE in that case.

I'm not sure. Maybe there should be a preference telling the IDE what to do on 
sys.exit, either the current behaviour or exiting? A side issue is that the 
message "SystemExit" is rather obscure. Maybe it should be replaced with 
"Script called sys.exit()" or something a bit more descriptive.
--
Jack Jansen             | ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++
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