On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Roy Smith <r...@panix.com> wrote:
> It's not a shifting goalpost. My original statement was that:
>
> def foo():
> raise Exception
>
> defines a function which 1) has no explicit return statement and 2) does
> not return None. I stand by that statement. There is no possible
> codepath, no possible calling sequence, no possible execution
> environment, which will cause that function to return None. That fact
> that one particular Python implementation happens to produce unreachable
> bytecode for returning None is meaningless. Would you say that:
>
> def baz():
> return None
> print "I got here"
>
> is a function which prints "I got here"?
Granted, but I would describe this:
def foo(x):
return "Hello, world!\n" + str(x)
as a function which returns a string. Is it? Well, not if str raises
an exception. Even if the only arguments you can give to foo will
result in exceptions, I would still say that, per design, this is a
function that returns a string. The possibility of raising an
exception (and thus not returning anything) doesn't change a
function's return type (by which I mean more than just what C would
use as the declaration - I could just as well say "Returns the name of
an employee", and the same argument would apply).
ChrisA
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