Dan Sugalski wrote:
>
> Markus Peter wrote:
>
> > There is no such thing as an ultimately fatal error - it should
> > always be up to the user of a module wether the program should
> > die, but I guess you see that the same and will answer me with
> > "use eval" then ;-)
>
> I hope you're speaking from a perl level--a segfault pretty much
> spells "Game Over"...
Dan, FYI ~
Yes, from a Perl level.
In general, discussion on -errors have assumed that there will
be a class of what we are generically referring to as exceptions
that will indeed not behave according to the rules for all other
exceptions (such as being able to be caught by eval { ... } ).
Certainly segfault and hcffault (that's halt-and-catch-fire fault)
would we in that class of exceptions.
Other exceptions, such as out-of-memory, might almost be in that
class, except when the emergency out-of-memory memory pool comes
into play. I haven't though that one through.
Then there's exceptions like divide-by-zero and (if C<use fatal;> is
in scope) cant-open-file. Clearly, these are catchable. There is
currently a running dialogue on whether or not divide-by-zero and
other such so-called "fatal" errors should be handled by a separate
mechanism from that used for so-called "non-fatal" errors like
cant-open-file, where is where you stepped in. Said dialogue will
play itself out.
Yours, &c, Tony Olekshy
