What's the best way to wrap a whole script in try..except?

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Hari Sekhon wrote:
> I want to wrap a whole script in try ... except. What is the best way of
> doing this?
> 
> Consider the following: -
> 
> try:
>    import <modules>
> 
>    <CODE>
> 
>    def notifyme(traceback):
>       code to tell me there is a problem
> 
> except Exception, traceback:
>    notifyme(traceback)
> 
> 
> Would this code not work because if any part of <CODE> encounters an
> exception then it won't reach the notifyme() function definition and
> therefore the whole thing won't work and I won't get notified when a
> traceback occurs, in fact the call to notifyme() under except will
> itself probably trace back as well!

Yes.

> Do I have to instead do:
> 
> import <a couple of modules>
> def notifyme():
>    code to tell me there is a problem
> 
> try:
>    <CODE>
> 
> except Exception, traceback:
>    notifyme(traceback)
> 

Would work, but...

> How you you handle this?

I don't put the main logic at the top level - I use a main() function.

import <some modules>
def notifyme(e):
  # code here...

def main(*args):
  try:
    # code here
    return 0

  except Exception, e:
    notifyme(e)
    return <some-non-zero-error-code>

if __name__ == '__main__':
  import sys
  sys.exit(main(*sys.argv))

-- 
bruno desthuilliers
python -c "print '@'.join(['.'.join([w[::-1] for w in p.split('.')]) for
p in 'onurb at xiludom.gro'.split('@')])"