[Python-Dev] Better SyntaxError messages

[Ka-Ping Yee]

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Vladimir Marangozov wrote:
> Looks fine.  +1 on the concept.

Yay!

> >     SyntaxError: expected indent here
> 
> I'd remove the word "here" so that the error msg is self-contained.
> "expected indent" & "expected dedent" are fine. 

Fine with me (more on messages below).

> >     4. Added int *expected_ret argument to PyParser_AddToken; on
> >        a syntax error, PyParser_AddToken (in parser.c) places the
> >        expected token type (if any) into this output parameter.
> 
> I'd suggest passing a pointer to the perrdetail structure (to the
> whole error, that is), instead of a pointer to one of its fields.

I did consider that; the reason i eventually decided against it
is that munging perrdetail appears to be [parsetok.c] parsetok()'s
responsibility, not [parser.c] PyParser_AddToken()'s.  The latter
doesn't mess with any of the other fields of perrdetail -- and it
returns an error code which becomes err_ret->error, so passing in
perrdetail gives PyParser_AddToken() two ways of returning the same
information.  The redundancy and possible future confusion didn't
seem worth it.

Another alternative is to change the return value so it *isn't*
an error code (only a success/fail flag) and then rely on the error
code in err_ret->error.  I guess if you see a compelling reason for
this i don't mind doing it.  But is there one?

Greg Wilson wrote:
> I just did a poll --- only 2 out of 5 programmers in my shouting radius
> know what "dedent" means.  Is there a more accessible way to phrase the
> error message?

Indeed.  Sorry about that -- i should have realized that it's a
fairly cryptic term.  "Dedent" seems to have become a standard
term within the C code; perhaps we can allow "dedent" in the C code
and standardize on "unindent" outside?

How about this set of messages, then:

    SyntaxError: unexpected indent
    SyntaxError: unexpected unindent
    SyntaxError: expected indent
    SyntaxError: expected unindent
    SyntaxError: unindent did not match any outer indentation level
    SyntaxError: inconsistent use of tabs and spaces in indentation
    SyntaxError: too many levels of indentation

Hmm.  For the record, the section of the reference manual about
indentation talks about INDENT and DEDENT tokens.  In fact i don't
think there's any mention of the word "unindent" in the Python
documentation.  But outside of the Python docs, "unindent" is
clearly a commonly used and understood term in general practice,
much more so than "dedent".


-- ?!ng