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Re: Guarding arithmetic

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Mark Carter wrote:

> Suppose I want to define a function "safe", which returns the argument
> passed if there is no error, and 42 if there is one. So the setup is
> something like:
> 
> def safe(x):
>    # WHAT WOULD DEFINE HERE?
> 
> print safe(666) # prints 666
> print safe(1/0) # prints 42
> 
> I don't see how such a function could be defined. Is it possible?

1/0 is evaluated before safe() is called. Therefore safe() has no chance to 
catch the exception. You have to move the evaluation into the safe() 
function:

>>> def safe(deferred, default=42, exception=Exception):
...     try:
...             return deferred()
...     except exception:
...             return default
... 
>>> print safe(lambda: 666)
666
>>> print safe(lambda: 1/0)
42

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Guarding arithmetic Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 02:05 -0700
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 19:16 +1000
    Re: Guarding arithmetic Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 02:22 -0700
    Re: Guarding arithmetic Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 19:29 +1000
    Re: Guarding arithmetic Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 02:22 -0700
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Laszlo Nagy <gandalf@shopzeus.com> - 2012-08-23 11:23 +0200
    Re: Guarding arithmetic Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 02:47 -0700
    Re: Guarding arithmetic Mark Carter <alt.mcarter@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 02:47 -0700
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Laszlo Nagy <gandalf@shopzeus.com> - 2012-08-23 11:28 +0200
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 19:30 +1000
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de> - 2012-08-23 12:11 +0200
    Re: Guarding arithmetic rusi <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2012-08-23 10:15 -0700
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Laszlo Nagy <gandalf@shopzeus.com> - 2012-08-23 13:01 +0200
  Re: Guarding arithmetic MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2012-08-23 12:21 +0100
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Peter Otten <__peter__@web.de> - 2012-08-23 13:28 +0200
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-23 15:11 +0100
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2012-08-23 14:49 -0400
  Re: Guarding arithmetic Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-08-24 07:48 +1000

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