Bug #18002 for Getopt-Euclid: Possible for Getopt-Euclid to report bad arguments without compile abort?

Sun Mar 05 19:55:38 2006 Guest - Ticket created

Subject:

Possible for Getopt-Euclid to report bad arguments without compile abort?

First of all, I discovered this module through the excellent "Perl Best Practices" and I'm finding both the book and the module extremely useful. Thanks! There is only one minor complaint I have about this module. In the _bad_arglist subroutine, if any bad or missing arguments were found, the module uses a "die" to report the problem. In my experience this means that when a user of my program fails to use the defined syntax, in addition to the helpful "Unknown argument" or "Missing required argument" message, the user also gets a very unhelpful: BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at myscript.pl line 4. Line 4 is where I "use Getopt::Euclid;". I made myself a slightly modified version of Getopt::Euclid where the line: die "$msg(Try: $prog_name --help)\n\n"; is replaced by: warn "$msg(Try: $prog_name --help)\n\n"; exit; And this seems to give me the behavior I am looking for. Is there a compelling reason that the module needs to die in this case? If so, is there some way to prevent a finished program that uses this module from reporting a compile error when called with the wrong syntax?

Sun Mar 05 20:06:37 2006 damian [...] conway.org - Correspondence added

Subject:	Re: [rt.cpan.org #18002] Possible for Getopt-Euclid to report bad arguments without compile abort?
Date:	Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:06:09 +1100
To:	bug-Getopt-Euclid [...] rt.cpan.org
From:	Damian Conway <damian [...] conway.org>

Show quoted text

> First of all, I discovered this module through the excellent "Perl Best > Practices" and I'm finding both the book and the module extremely > useful. Thanks!

You're most welcome. ;-) Show quoted text

> There is only one minor complaint I have about this module. In the > _bad_arglist subroutine, if any bad or missing arguments were found, the > module uses a "die" to report the problem. In my experience this means > that when a user of my program fails to use the defined syntax, in > addition to the helpful "Unknown argument" or "Missing required > argument" message, the user also gets a very unhelpful: > > BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at myscript.pl line 4. > > Line 4 is where I "use Getopt::Euclid;". > > I made myself a slightly modified version of Getopt::Euclid where the line: > > die "$msg(Try: $prog_name --help)\n\n"; > > is replaced by: > > warn "$msg(Try: $prog_name --help)\n\n"; > exit; > > And this seems to give me the behavior I am looking for. Is there a > compelling reason that the module needs to die in this case? If so, is > there some way to prevent a finished program that uses this module from > reporting a compile error when called with the wrong syntax?

I don't know of a way to silence the annoying message, nor indeed of a way to capture the exception that's thrown. So the C<die> is clearly unhelpful. I've changed it as you suggested for the next release. Many thanks, Damian

Sun Mar 05 20:06:38 2006 The RT System itself - Status changed from 'new' to 'open'

Sun Mar 05 20:21:27 2006 Guest - Correspondence added

On Sun Mar 05 20:06:37 2006, damian@conway.org wrote: Show quoted text

> I don't know of a way to silence the annoying message, nor indeed of a > way to > capture the exception that's thrown. So the C<die> is clearly > unhelpful. I've > changed it as you suggested for the next release.

Wow, talk about your fast responses! :-) Thanks! David Brewer

Sat Oct 07 23:00:35 2006 DCONWAY [...] cpan.org - Correspondence added

Resolved. Thanks.

Sat Oct 07 23:00:36 2006 DCONWAY [...] cpan.org - Status changed from 'open' to 'resolved'

Sat Oct 07 23:00:38 2006 DCONWAY [...] cpan.org - Given to DCONWAY