There are two ways to deal with this. One is mentioned above, and that is wrapping dying code in eval{}, which is sort of like Java's try setup. Code inside the eval block may die, but if it does, it merely ends the eval block (and, as a bonus, $@ gets set to the message it died with). 

eval {
   ... code that might die ...
};
if ($@) {
   # if we had an error.
   ... read $@ and decide on what to do ...
}

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However, if you will always do the same thing upon death, you can also override the "die" signal. This would be used, for example, if you want to return a useful exit code to a wrapper script. 

$SIG{__DIE__} = \&my_death;

sub my_death {
   warn @_;          #propagate the message via warn()
   POSIX::_exit(42); #exit with code 42
}

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You should read about this in the perldocs before going the route above, as certain things (like I/O) are not a good idea when your app is in the throes of death. ;-)

Update: I forgot to add, if you do want to do "dangerous" things to recover from a fatal error, one way to accomplish this is to wrap your script's main logic in a subroutine (say, main()), and do something like this: 

sub main {
   ... main program logic ...
}

eval { main() };
if ($@) {
   ... handle any fatal errors ...
}

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This allows you to, among other things, put common housekeeping-on-exit routines inside an END{} block. For example: 

eval { main() };
if ($@) {
   warn "FATAL: $@"; ## all I want to do is warn about the fatal.
}

END {
   close_all_files();
   issue_done_to_server();
}

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This way, you will close all files and issue a done to the server (I made those up, BTW) whether you had fatal errors or not.

Larry Wall is Yoda: there is no try{}
The Code that can be seen is not the true Code

In reply to Re: Module wants to die! How do I handle this? by radiantmatrix
in thread Module wants to die! How do I handle this? by jdtoronto

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