[Python-Dev] WindowsError repr (original) (raw)

Mark Hammond MarkH@ActiveState.com
Tue, 15 Aug 2000 10:46:56 +1000

I have just checked in a fix for: [ Bug #110670 ] Win32 os.listdir raises confusing errors http://sourceforge.net/bugs/?group_id=5470&func=detailbug&bug_id=110670

In a nutshell:

os.listdir('/cow') ... OSError: [Errno 3] No such process: '/cow'

The solution here was to use the new WindowsError object that was defined back in February (http://www.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2000-February/008803.html) As this is a sub-class of OSError, nothing will break.

However, the look of the error does change. After my fix, it now looks like:

os.listdir('/cow') ... WindowsError: [Errno 3] The system cannot find the path specified: '/cow'

AGAIN - I stress - catching "OSError" or "os.error" will continue to work, as WindowsError derives from OSError. It just worries me that people will start explicitly catching "WindowsError", regardless of whatever documentation we might write on the subject.

Does anyone see this as a problem? Should a WindowsError masquerade as "OSError", or maybe just look a little more like it - eg, "OSError (windows)" ??

Thoughts,

Mark.