[Python-Dev] Builtin exit, good in interpreter, bad in code.

Mon Apr 24 04:12:31 CEST 2006

On 4/23/06, Sean Reifschneider <jafo-python-dev at tummy.com> wrote:
> A friend of mine is learning Python, and had a problem with the exit
> builtin. I like that in the interpreter it gives useful information, but
> he was writing a program in a file and tried "exit(0)", and was presented
> with the non-obvious error:
>> TypeError: 'str' object is not callable
>> What about something like:
>> >>> class ExitClass:
> ... def __repr__(self):
> ... return('Hey, press control-D')
> ... def __call__(self, value):
> ... raise SyntaxError, 'You want to use sys.exit'
> ...
> >>> exit = ExitClass()
> >>> exit
> Hey, press control-D
> >>> exit(1)
> Traceback (most recent call last):
> File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
> File "<stdin>", line 5, in __call__
> SyntaxError: You want to use sys.exit
>> Jerub on #python thinks that maybe it needs to subclass the string object
> instead, but in general it seems like it might be an improvement.

Why don't we just not define 'exit' in non-interactive environments?
--
Crutcher Dunnavant <crutcher at gmail.com>
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