Re: $!

At 12:51 PM 8/17/00 -0700, Damien Neil wrote:
>Hmm.  It just occurred to me that you could combine your idea with
>exceptions quite nicely: All core functions throw exceptions on
>error, but only when called in a void context.  (As well as, perhaps,
>when a given pragma is in effect.)  This way, old code which correctly
>checks errors will run without modification.  Old code which
>incorrectly ignores errors will get error checking.  (And old code
>which correctly ignores errors breaks, which is probably enough of
>a problem to torpedo the whole idea.  Alas.)
>
>   open(FD, "foo") or die;   # Scalar context, no exception thrown.
>   open(FD, "foo");          # Void context, exception thrown on error.

This is the territory of RFC 70, which wants to expand the scope of 
Fatal.pm, and RFC 80, which wants a rich object-oriented structure for the 
exceptions.

But I was just asking something far more mundane, predicated on $! 
surviving in much the same form: can its scope be expanded to be more than 
just the current set of system calls?

--
Peter Scott
Pacific Systems Design Technologies