Hi,
Using exceptions in arguments parser is something that just cannot be justified.
Why not?
Even in the danger of starting a huge debate about "exceptions vs return error
code" here are my thoughts about it:
Exceptions should just be used for... well, /exceptional/ cases.
So what would be an "exceptional case" for a command line parser then? Certainly not wrongly
provided arguments. Humans tend to misspell words all the time, so that's "the norm": business as
usual for a command line parser to validate the input and inform the user appropriately (with a usage help,
similar spelled commands etc.). Nothing which cries "exception!" here IMHO.
The only thing I could think of in a 10 second brainstorming which could be considered
"exceptional" is when e.g. "stdin" (or some socket even from which to read commands, but
even this would be a bordercase, as it could be considered "normal" that a socket cannot be opened)
cannot be opened for reading (which is somewhat a constructed example, as arguments are usually passed as
input parameters to main() anyway - but you get the idea).
The internet is full of articles - and opinions - about when to use exceptions, and when
not (and we haven't even touched the topic of "unchecked vs checked exceptions"
- at least in the Java camp that's all the rage ;)).
I will not start that holly war about what you said.... :) I just say
that I will think about more and more user friendly messages on wrong
user input. I wanted to simplify a life of a developer and a user of
console application. But developer will be informed about "errors"
through the exceptions.
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