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  3. A question of indentation!

A question of indentation!

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  • T Tomasz Sowinski

    Well, it seems that you need some kind of object wrapper over PGPError. The object could convert that to true/false or even throw some exception. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

    - It's for protection
    - Protection from what? Zee Germans?

    N Offline
    N Offline
    Nish Nishant
    wrote on last edited by
    #32

    Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Well, it seems that you need some kind of object wrapper over PGPError. The object could convert that to true/false or even throw some exception Shucks! It always comes down to the basics and theory. If my OOP theory was strong enough I'd not have run into this situation :-( Nish


    Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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    • N Nish Nishant

      Daniel Turini wrote: That's why exception handling was invented. Try throwing exceptions instead of nesting if's. Cool! I never thought of that! I just don't know much about exception handling though. What's this PGPException thing? Nish


      Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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      Daniel Turini
      wrote on last edited by
      #33

      Nish - Native CPian wrote: What's this PGPException thing? A class you'd create to handle exceptions from PGP SDK. The best exception handling class I saw for an API is CWin32Error. Probably you don't need something so complicated, but some of Jadhav's ideas are pretty good and simple to implement. Crivo Automated Credit Assessment

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      • D Daniel Turini

        Nish - Native CPian wrote: What's this PGPException thing? A class you'd create to handle exceptions from PGP SDK. The best exception handling class I saw for an API is CWin32Error. Probably you don't need something so complicated, but some of Jadhav's ideas are pretty good and simple to implement. Crivo Automated Credit Assessment

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        Nish Nishant
        wrote on last edited by
        #34

        Daniel Turini wrote: A class you'd create to handle exceptions from PGP SDK. The best exception handling class I saw for an API is CWin32Error. Probably you don't need something so complicated, but some of Jadhav's ideas are pretty good and simple to implement. Thanks! I'll look it up. Nish :-)


        Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

        1 Reply Last reply
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        • N Nish Nishant

          Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Well, it seems that you need some kind of object wrapper over PGPError. The object could convert that to true/false or even throw some exception Shucks! It always comes down to the basics and theory. If my OOP theory was strong enough I'd not have run into this situation :-( Nish


          Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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          Tomasz Sowinski
          wrote on last edited by
          #35

          Post more code - especially, how PGPError is returned and when it means an error. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

          - It's for protection
          - Protection from what? Zee Germans?

          N 1 Reply Last reply
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          • N Nish Nishant

            Eddie Velasquez wrote: An exception should always indicate an error... That's what I also thought. But PGP errors are often not errors. I have explained in one of the mis-placed posts here. I don't wanna re-type it :-) The indendation of this thread is now worse than any indentation I could have produced :-) Nish


            Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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            Eddie Velasquez
            wrote on last edited by
            #36

            Nish - Native CPian wrote: That's what I also thought. But PGP errors are often not errors. If a PGP error isn't a "real" error (informational return value) then it shouldn't raise an exception or you can catch the exception and just ignore it.


            Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
            Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

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            • E Eddie Velasquez

              Christian Graus wrote: An exception does not necessarily mean an error. An exception should always indicate an error... that's why they're called "exceptions"... because they're exceptional. :) Or did I miss something in your post?


              Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
              Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

              C Offline
              C Offline
              Christian Graus
              wrote on last edited by
              #37

              To quote Stroustrup: The Exception handling mechanism is a nonlocal control structure based on stack unwinding that can be seen as an alternative return mechanism. There are therefore legitimate uses of exceptions that have nothing to do with errors. Christian I am completely intolerant of stupidity. Stupidity is, of course, anything that doesn't conform to my way of thinking. - Jamie Hale - 29/05/2002

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              • N Nish Nishant

                Tomasz Sowinski wrote: if (call1() && call2() && call3() ....) That won;'t work. I am not supposed to call call-n unless call-n-1 returns true!


                Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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                Navin
                wrote on last edited by
                #38

                Nish - Native CPian wrote: if (call1() && call2() && call3() ....) That won;'t work. I am not supposed to call call-n unless call-n-1 returns true! :confused: Why won't that work then? With C++, you have "short-circuit" evaluation - that is, if the first item in an If statement fails, the rest won't even get evaluated. For instance, I have code like this all the time (well, when I'm not using CStrings... :-D) : if(pStr != NULL && strlen(pStr) > 0) { ... } If pStr is NULL, the first condition fails, and the second condition (strlen) won't even be evaluated. No generalization is 100% true. Not even this one.

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                • N Nish Nishant

                  Tomasz Sowinski wrote: Well, it seems that you need some kind of object wrapper over PGPError. The object could convert that to true/false or even throw some exception Shucks! It always comes down to the basics and theory. If my OOP theory was strong enough I'd not have run into this situation :-( Nish


                  Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

                  J Offline
                  J Offline
                  James Pullicino
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #39

                  Nish - Native CPian wrote: Shucks! It always comes down to the basics and theory. If my OOP theory was strong enough I'd not have run into this situation Nish, don't get discouraged. The prime motivation for most of us to learn OOP was because of these things. Don't shy away from OOP. In a few months you will be the one telling others to wrap their functions into objects. C++ Programmers do it in class Drinking In The Sun Forgot Password?

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                  • N Nish Nishant

                    Indentation is nice. In fact code that is not indented is an absolute pain to even look at. But then sometimes you get into absurd levels of indentation. Right now I am working with the PGP SDK. For certain operations I need to call about 7-10 functions sequentially. The problem is that each of these functions can be called ONLY if all the previous functions are successful. Thus I have something like this.

                    if(call1())
                    {
                    if(call2())
                    {
                    if(call3())
                    {
                    if(call4())
                    {
                    if((call5())
                    {
                    if(call6())
                    {

                    That's just a sample, just the tip of the large iceberg. Often it get's a LOT more deeply nested than I have shown above! In such situations can we actually do away with indentation at least partially? For example would it be considered okay to do this.

                    if(call1())
                    {
                    if(call2())
                    {
                    if(call3())
                    {
                    if(call4())
                    {
                    if((call5())
                    {
                    if(call6())
                    {

                    I have maintained a little indentation, but it's not perfectly done! Your comments are welcome


                    Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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                    Daniel Turini
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #40

                    Excuse me Nish, I can't resist! Post it in the right forum ! :) :) Crivo Automated Credit Assessment

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                    • N Nish Nishant

                      Eddie Velasquez wrote: if(!call3()) return; I can't do that. Since I need to do some cleaning up as well :( Nish


                      Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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                      C Offline
                      Chris Maunder
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #41

                      do {
                      if (!call1())
                      break;
                      if (!call2())
                      break;
                      ...
                      } while (false);

                      Cleanup();

                      cheers, Chris Maunder

                      VC++ - the language that doesn't say 'no'

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                      • N Nish Nishant

                        Eddie Velasquez wrote: Well, I was talking in a general sense and didn't realize you were referring to the PGP SDK in particular. My bad. PGP calls return a PGPError and you need to call IsPGPError(...) on it to figure out whether it was an error or not. Some cases you actually get an error and it's not really an error overall! Like some encryption algorithms won't work when it's an RSA key but you are supposed to ignore that since it won't cause any problem Nish


                        Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

                        J Offline
                        J Offline
                        Jason Gerard
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #42

                        Nish - Native CPian wrote: PGP calls return a PGPError and you need to call IsPGPError(...) on it to figure out whether it was an error or not. That is the worst API I've ever heard of. Jason Gerard

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                        • C Christian Graus

                          To quote Stroustrup: The Exception handling mechanism is a nonlocal control structure based on stack unwinding that can be seen as an alternative return mechanism. There are therefore legitimate uses of exceptions that have nothing to do with errors. Christian I am completely intolerant of stupidity. Stupidity is, of course, anything that doesn't conform to my way of thinking. - Jamie Hale - 29/05/2002

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                          J Offline
                          Jason Henderson
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #43

                          I never thought of it this way but try/catch would be a good "control structure" to use instead of nested if's. Its also 100x easier to read. Is Stroustrup trying to say it should only be used as a return mechanism if it isn't used in error handling? Like it or not, I'm right.

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                          • N Nish Nishant

                            Christian Graus wrote: Try/Thow/catch ( and finally in C#, dunno about C++ ) are the obvious way to deal with your situation. I don't even know how to implement exceptions :-( Might have to do some reading Actually after reading all the suggestions, I liked peterchens do{} while(0) idea :-) Nish


                            Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

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                            Jason Henderson
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #44

                            // Bad example, but it shows you how to use them
                            for (int count=0; count<10; count++)
                            {
                            try
                            {
                            if (count%2 == 0)
                            throw "Even";
                            else
                            throw "Odd";
                            }
                            catch(LPSTR str)
                            {
                            MessageBox(NULL, str, "This number is:", MB_OK);
                            }
                            catch(...) // all other errors
                            {
                            MessageBox(NULL, "Unhandled exception.", "Error", MB_OK);
                            }
                            }

                            Like it or not, I'm right.

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                            • C Christian Graus

                              To quote Stroustrup: The Exception handling mechanism is a nonlocal control structure based on stack unwinding that can be seen as an alternative return mechanism. There are therefore legitimate uses of exceptions that have nothing to do with errors. Christian I am completely intolerant of stupidity. Stupidity is, of course, anything that doesn't conform to my way of thinking. - Jamie Hale - 29/05/2002

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                              E Offline
                              Eddie Velasquez
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #45

                              Christian Graus wrote: There are therefore legitimate uses of exceptions that have nothing to do with errors. Well, I can't pretend to teach C++ to Bjarne! :-O But as quoted, these "legitimate uses that have nothing to do with errors" are the exception, not the rule. (pun intended!) I'm not really thinking about this too hard, but I fail to come up with a case where I would raise an exception that doesn't somehow indicate an error condition. :confused:


                              Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
                              Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

                              T C 2 Replies Last reply
                              0
                              • J Jason Henderson

                                // Bad example, but it shows you how to use them
                                for (int count=0; count<10; count++)
                                {
                                try
                                {
                                if (count%2 == 0)
                                throw "Even";
                                else
                                throw "Odd";
                                }
                                catch(LPSTR str)
                                {
                                MessageBox(NULL, str, "This number is:", MB_OK);
                                }
                                catch(...) // all other errors
                                {
                                MessageBox(NULL, "Unhandled exception.", "Error", MB_OK);
                                }
                                }

                                Like it or not, I'm right.

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                                Eddie Velasquez
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #46

                                I want to add that it's a bad idea to throw exceptions for anything that doesn't indicate an "exceptional" (uncommon, erroneous) condition because in C++ exception support has a lot of overhead that's too costly for idioms that can be expressed in a cleaner and more efficient way using othe language constructs. Jason Henderson wrote: catch(...) // all other errors { MessageBox(NULL, "Unhandled exception.", "Error", MB_OK); } Just nitpicking... the message should be "unexpected exception" not "unhandled exception" because you just handled the exception!


                                Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
                                Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

                                1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • J Jason Henderson

                                  I never thought of it this way but try/catch would be a good "control structure" to use instead of nested if's. Its also 100x easier to read. Is Stroustrup trying to say it should only be used as a return mechanism if it isn't used in error handling? Like it or not, I'm right.

                                  E Offline
                                  E Offline
                                  Eddie Velasquez
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #47

                                  Jason Henderson wrote: I never thought of it this way but try/catch would be a good "control structure" to use instead of nested if's. Its also 100x easier to read. The problem is that for most implementations, exception support has too much overhead for practical use as a "control structure" that's not directly related to exceptional (uncommon, errroneous) conditions. Check out Vishal Kochhar's excellent How a C++ compiler implements exception handling article for more information.


                                  Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
                                  Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • T Tomasz Sowinski

                                    Eddie Velasquez wrote: I fail to come up with a case where I would raise an exception that doesn't somehow indicate an error condition Assume that you have a dozen of functions searching for some data in smart card, registry, current directory, directories listed in some env variable, etc, etc. So instead of nested constructs like this...

                                    if (!SearchForFooInGoo(...))
                                    {
                                    if (!SearchForFooInBoo(...))
                                    {
                                    }
                                    }

                                    ... you just throw FooFoundException when one of the calls returns true. Then your exception handler does the job. Perverse, but still possible :-D Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

                                    - It's for protection
                                    - Protection from what? Zee Germans?

                                    E Offline
                                    E Offline
                                    Eddie Velasquez
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #48

                                    Yeah I thought about this but I think it's a bad idea. Check out my reasons why this use of exceptions is a bad idea post


                                    Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
                                    Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

                                    T 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • E Eddie Velasquez

                                      Christian Graus wrote: There are therefore legitimate uses of exceptions that have nothing to do with errors. Well, I can't pretend to teach C++ to Bjarne! :-O But as quoted, these "legitimate uses that have nothing to do with errors" are the exception, not the rule. (pun intended!) I'm not really thinking about this too hard, but I fail to come up with a case where I would raise an exception that doesn't somehow indicate an error condition. :confused:


                                      Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
                                      Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

                                      T Offline
                                      T Offline
                                      Tomasz Sowinski
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #49

                                      Eddie Velasquez wrote: I fail to come up with a case where I would raise an exception that doesn't somehow indicate an error condition Assume that you have a dozen of functions searching for some data in smart card, registry, current directory, directories listed in some env variable, etc, etc. So instead of nested constructs like this...

                                      if (!SearchForFooInGoo(...))
                                      {
                                      if (!SearchForFooInBoo(...))
                                      {
                                      }
                                      }

                                      ... you just throw FooFoundException when one of the calls returns true. Then your exception handler does the job. Perverse, but still possible :-D Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

                                      - It's for protection
                                      - Protection from what? Zee Germans?

                                      E 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • N Nish Nishant

                                        Indentation is nice. In fact code that is not indented is an absolute pain to even look at. But then sometimes you get into absurd levels of indentation. Right now I am working with the PGP SDK. For certain operations I need to call about 7-10 functions sequentially. The problem is that each of these functions can be called ONLY if all the previous functions are successful. Thus I have something like this.

                                        if(call1())
                                        {
                                        if(call2())
                                        {
                                        if(call3())
                                        {
                                        if(call4())
                                        {
                                        if((call5())
                                        {
                                        if(call6())
                                        {

                                        That's just a sample, just the tip of the large iceberg. Often it get's a LOT more deeply nested than I have shown above! In such situations can we actually do away with indentation at least partially? For example would it be considered okay to do this.

                                        if(call1())
                                        {
                                        if(call2())
                                        {
                                        if(call3())
                                        {
                                        if(call4())
                                        {
                                        if((call5())
                                        {
                                        if(call6())
                                        {

                                        I have maintained a little indentation, but it's not perfectly done! Your comments are welcome


                                        Regards, Nish Native CPian. Born and brought up on CP. With the CP blood in him.

                                        J Offline
                                        J Offline
                                        Jason Hooper
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #50

                                        Nish - Native CPian wrote: In fact code that is not indented is an absolute pain to even look at. But then sometimes you get into absurd levels of indentation Try generating HTML tables with perl's CGI.pm. (Yes I'm using the MDE to edit perl files... this was before I learned vi) - Jason (SonorkID 100.611) In the beginning, teachers taught the 5 W's: who, what, where, when, why. Now it's just a big damn G

                                        1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • E Eddie Velasquez

                                          Yeah I thought about this but I think it's a bad idea. Check out my reasons why this use of exceptions is a bad idea post


                                          Eddie Velasquez: A Squeezed Devil
                                          Checkout General Guidelines for C# Class Implementation

                                          T Offline
                                          T Offline
                                          Tomasz Sowinski
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #51

                                          I don't buy performance-related arguments, at least not in 100%. While there are the situations in which this could matter (thight loops etc), in my example you'd access disk. For sure this operation would be orders of magnitude slower than throwing/catching exceptions. The same applies to displaying anything on the screen or accepting user input. In short, the cost associated with exception handling would be totally invisible. Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com

                                          - It's for protection
                                          - Protection from what? Zee Germans?

                                          E 1 Reply Last reply
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