Error Handling

[Otto J. Makela]

In article <837 at babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu> vrm at cathedral.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu (Vasile R. Montan) writes:
[What is the best way for a function to test for errors ?]
   Method 1: Return Error Code When Error Is Encountered
	     The problems I have with this are first it goes against
	     software engineering principles which say that all functions
	     should have one entry point and one exit point.  Secondly
	     some functions do have some standard clean up to do.
[...]
   Method 2: Set Error Code and Return Only at End
	     The problem I have with this is that I don't want to do
	     later work if a previous error occured.  I just want to
	     clean up and return.  This forces me to continuously check
	     if a previous error occured.
[...]
   Method 3: Use GOTO to Create Exception Handler
	     Of course this breaks the golden rule of software
	     engineering of "absolutely positively no GOTO's in your
	     program."

I would go for method 3 everytime (if the clean-up is trivial, go for 1).

Remember, rules like "no GOTOs" are inventions of Pascal weenies, and I
wouldn't call them golden :-)
Simplistic rules like this are supposedly a alternative to using common
sense in programming (no smiley here).  They are human inventions, they
didn't come down from the mountain engarved in stone tablets.

Seriously, do you think method 2 is more "structured" than method 3 only
because it has no gotos in it ?  I have seen awful constructs which are
supposedly structured programming, in which you have a dozen of "break-
out-flags" from nested loops because you can't use gotos or breaks (the
latter being only gotos to the exit point of the loop).

(I have a weird feeling I'm going to be flamed by religiously structured
zealots... what are you doing with that napalm ?)
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