(tye)Re: Nice style for interesting error messages

If success is uninteresting, then return an uninteresting result, that is, "". Then return the reason for failure (as a string, coded number, whatever) in the case of failure. system() already acts this way so it should not be too confusing for people (that is what documentation is for).

- tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

Comment on (tye)Re: Nice style for interesting error messages

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Re: (tye)Re: Nice style for interesting error messages by YaRness (Initiate) on Jan 24, 2001 at 23:40 UTC
This sounds like what I wanted to suggest. So maybe you'd have: `if (my $result = whois($foo) ) { #here we do something if the whois failed }` [download] or if you want something more intuitive, name the "whois" function "is_taken" or something. I'm not sure if memory-wise, the $result above would exist after the if statement, but it's only scoped for the if statement. If it is only allocated for the duraction of the if block however, that'd be a good way to not have an extra string/token sitting useless in memory for very long when whois succeeds.	[reply] [d/l]

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Re: (tye)Re: Nice style for interesting error messages
by YaRness (Initiate) on Jan 24, 2001 at 23:40 UTC

if (my $result = whois($foo) )
{
    #here we do something if the whois failed
}
[download]

[reply]
[d/l]