This and other RFCs are available on the web at http://dev.perl.org/rfc/ =head1 TITLE Allow exception-based error-reporting. =head1 VERSION Maintainer: Bennett Todd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 8 Aug 2000 Last-Modified: 12 Aug 2000 Version: 2 Mailing List: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Number: 70 =head1 ABSTRACT Allow full implementation of Fatal.pm, for programmers who prefer exceptions for error reporting. =head1 DESCRIPTION Perl has traditionally reflected the Unix syscall and library tradition for error reporting: errors are indicated by otherwise-impossible return values, which must be checked for explicitly, lest system error events be ignored. Some programmers prefer to have errors print a message and exit with non-zero status, by default, rather than having to always code " || die ...". In perl5 this has proven elusive of implementation. Fatal.pm has been the attempt made to date, and it suffers from two problems. One can be fixed with further development: it should have various lists of builtins available, e.g. :io, :system, :all for including all calls affecting I/O, all system calls of any sort, and all calls that can have error returns. If these were a success, then the requested category could also be posted into a testable variable, allowing module authors who wished to to automatically support this functionality as well. But Fatal.pm development stalls out early, because some builtins, which report testable error conditions, cannot be wrapped. A conspicuous example is print(). =head1 IMPLEMENTATION Ensure that every perl builtin that can return an error, can be wrapped. I don't know whether this is purely an implementation issue (and so lies solely in the domain of perl6-internals) or whether any programmer-visible changes may be necessary to allow this (justifying posting to perl6-language). =head1 REFERENCES Fatal.pm, as included with recent perls. Error.pm, available from CPAN, and cited by RFC 63: if this proposal should carry, then Fatal.pm will see some very active development, and if RFC 63 should also prevail, then Fatal's development should be guided by RFC 63/Error.pm. RFC 80 Proposes a taxonomy for exception objects; should it prevail, it should guide the structure of exceptions thrown when Fatal.pm gets worked on.
