xml-dev - Exceptions or not (Was: RE: ModSAX (SAX 1.1) Proposal)

[David Megginson <david@megginson.com>]

Jarle Stabell writes:

 > I haven't used Java much, so personally I don't know whether I find
 > this forced declarations of exception throwing a good thing.  (It
 > seems to me quite a lot of people throws in the towel and just
 > writes "throws exception")

Sure, it can get to that point, but then the exception falls off the
top level, and you still end up with some useful information about
where your bug was, so you're still better off than you would have
been.

Besides, "throws Exception" requires a conscious effort to turn off
the safety mechanisms.

 > If the typical case is (f.i.) : "I want Namespaces, X-Link, X-Schema and 
 > X-Pointer, and if I don't get all of these, I won't use you" (ie a 
 > conjunctive condition), then exceptions works very well, but if you don't 
 > want to throw in the towel the moment a single feature is not supported, 
 > exceptions could give uglier code than without them.

The two seem about the same length to me.  Here's the version with
exceptions:

  boolean hasNamespaces = true;
  boolean hasXLink = true;
  boolean hasDDML = true;
  boolean hasXPointer = true;

  try {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.namespaces", true);
  } catch (SAXNotSupportedException e) {
    hasNamespaces = false;
  }

  try {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.xlink", true);
  } catch (SAXNotSupportedException e) {
    hasXLink = false;
  }

  try {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.ddml", true);
  } catch (SAXNotSupportedException e) {
    hasDDML = false;
  }

  try {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.xpointer", true);
  } catch (SAXNotSupportedException e) {
    hasXPointer = false;
  }


Here's the version with boolean tests:

  boolean hasNamespaces = false;
  boolean hasXLink = false;
  boolean hasDDML = false;
  boolean hasXPointer = false;

  if (parser.supportsFeature("com.foo.features.namespaces")) {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.namespaces", true);
    hasNamespaces = true;
  }

  if (parser.supportsFeature("com.foo.features.xlink")) {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.xlink", true);
    hasXLink = true;
  }

  if (parser.supportsFeature("com.foo.features.ddml")) {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.ddml", true);
    hasDDML = true;
  }

  if (parser.supportsFeature("com.foo.features.xpointer")) {
    parser.setFeature("com.foo.features.xpointer", true);
    hasXPointer = true;
  }


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david@megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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