Antoon Pardon wrote: > Op 2005-08-27, Steve Holden schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > >>> >>If you want an exception from your code when 'w' isn't in the string you >>should consider using index() rather than find. > > > Sometimes it is convenient to have the exception thrown at a later > time. > > >>Otherwise, whatever find() returns you will have to have an "if" in >>there to handle the not-found case. > > > And maybe the more convenient place for this "if" is in a whole different > part of your program, a part where using -1 as an invalid index isn't > at all obvious. > > >>This just sounds like whining to me. If you want to catch errors, use a >>function that will raise an exception rather than relying on the >>invalidity of the result. > > > You always seem to look at such things in a very narrow scope. You never > seem to consider that various parts of a program have to work together. > Or perhaps it's just that I try not to mix parts inappropriately.
> So what happens if you have a module that is collecting string-index > pair, colleted from various other parts. In one part you > want to select the last letter, so you pythonically choose -1 as > index. In an other part you get a result of find and are happy > with -1 as an indictation for an invalid index. Then these > data meet. > That's when debugging has to start. Mixing data of such types is somewhat inadvisable, don't you agree? I suppose I can't deny that people do things like that, myself included, but mixing data sets where -1 is variously an error flag and a valid index is only going to lead to trouble when the combined data is used. regards Steve -- Steve Holden +44 150 684 7255 +1 800 494 3119 Holden Web LLC http://www.holdenweb.com/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
