[Bioperl-l] Exceptions and Interfaces

[Chervitz, Steve]

Jason Stajich [mailto:jason@chg.mc.duke.edu] wrote:

> [Shaking cobwebs of jetlag off, cursing sanger firewall]
> 
> On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Ewan Birney wrote:
> 
> > 
> > My take on this is that our current throw() mechanism is 
> really "Error.pm
> > written for ourselves". Error.pm is becoming the standard 
> and I think at
> > some point we have to bite the bullet and use this rather 
> than strings. 
> > 
> > 
> > As for hilmar's point --- I agree that we shouldn't require 
> some model to
> > be bioperl compliant. 
> > 
> Ditto. I like the capabilities of Error.pm - wonder if anyone 
> is plugged
> into perl dev lists to see what capabilities are planned to 
> be 'standard' 
> wrt exceptions.  Nat Torkinton was plugged into bioperl at some point
> might be worthwhile to ping him.

My sense is that something Error.pm-like is planned for Perl 6 (see
http://dev.perl.org/rfc/63.pod as well as 88.pod), but I don't know if
anything is planned for the 5.* branch appart from being able to die with
objects in $@. But it would be good to hear something from someone in the
know.

> > 
> > 
> > Over all I think the aim would be to move towards allowing 
> Error.pm being
> > "thrown" as well as strings, with RootI probably making a
> > Bio::Root::StringException for current $self->throw("this is a
> > message") and allow $self->throw($exception) (assumming 
> this is the way
> > Error.pm works). We should probably have another 
> Bio::Root::Exception
> > class which handles the stack trace deduction etc...
> > 
> 
> Stack traces are really the functionality we are building on top of
> Error.pm.  Might even be sensible to create a StackTrace 
> module to submit
> to CPAN as I think this is a very reasonable functionality.   Setting
> verbosity levels as well have proven to be useful to a number 
> of modules.

Verbosity is useful, but it's on a different level than exception throwing.
Each object knows how verbose it should be. (I wonder if there's anything in
the Perl 6 RFPs about this...). See my reply to Ewan about stack traces in
Error.pm.

Steve

> > 
> > 
> > I agree with Hilmar that this is not a must-have for 
> bioperl... but if you
> > want to roll it in then I'd be happy to have it ;)
> > 
> I agree - I think doing it sensibly will be an asset worth 
> spending the
> time on.
> 
> > 
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> > Ewan Birney. Mobile: +44 (0)7970 151230, Work: +44 1223 494420
> > <birney@ebi.ac.uk>. 
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > 
> 
> Jason Stajich
> jason@chg.mc.duke.edu
> Center for Human Genetics
> Duke University Medical Center 
> http://www.chg.duke.edu/ 
> 
>