Re: [matplotlib-devel] switching to PS/SVG backends

[Fernando P. <Fer...@co...>]

John Hunter schrieb:

> try : save_ps(fname)
> except IOError, msg:
>    verbose.report_error('Backend PS failed to save %s'%fname)
>    raise IOError(msg)

Just 'raise' is enough, python by default will re-raise the original exception 
untouched.

I'll leave this discussion to you guys, I don't know the matplotlib code 
enough to contribute anything really useful.  My only point is that reusing 
SystemExit for other purposes, with additional information encoded in the 
message, is IMHO a bad idea.  There's a reason why exceptions make up a class 
hierarchy: this allows you to use classes for the flow control mechanisms, 
leaving the string messages simply as additional information mainly for the 
user.  Since these messages are potentially locale-sensitive, and can change 
over time (spelling, capitalization, etc), it's just not a good idea to base 
code behaviour on them.

Cheers,

f