Object-oriented philosophy

[Michael F. Stemper]

On 2018-09-06 16:00, MRAB wrote:
> On 2018-09-06 21:24, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> On 2018-09-06 09:35, Rhodri James wrote:

>>> Is it worth creating the superclass in Python?  It sounds like it's a
>>> bit marginal in your case.  I'm not that seasoned in object-oriented
>>> design either, but my yardstick would be how much common code does it
>>> eliminate?
>>
>> About half a dozen lines. Here's the common part:
>>
>> def __init__( self, xmlmodel, V, id ):
>>
>>    try:
>>      P_0s = xmlmodel.findall( 'RatedPower' )[0].text
>>      self.P_0 = float( P_0s )
>>    except:
>>      Utility.DataErr( "Power not specified for %s load" % (id) )
>>    if self.P_0<=0.0:
>>      Utility.DataErr( "Power for %s load must be postive, not %s" \
>>        % (id,P_0s) )

> A word of advice: don't use a "bare" except, i.e. one that doesn't
> specify what exception(s) it should catch.

Given that I moved the first line ("P_0s = ...") out of the "try"
clause, does this align with your advice?

 # If pre-validation has been run, guaranteed to have RatedPower
 P_0s = xmlmodel.findall( 'RatedPower' )[0].text
 try:
   self.P_0 = float( P_0s )
 except ValueError:
   Utility.DataErr( "Power for %s load, '%s', not parsable" \
     % (id,P_0s) )
 if self.P_0<=0.0:
   Utility.DataErr( "Power for %s load must be postive, not %s" \
     % (id,P_0s) )

> Your try...except above will catch _any_ exception. If you misspelled a
> name in the 'try' part, it would raise NameError, which would also be
> caught.

In another case where I had a "bare exception", I was using it to see if
something was defined and substitute a default value if it wasn't. Have
I cleaned this up properly?

 try
   id = xmlmodel.attrib['name']
 except KeyError:
   id = "constant power"

(Both changes appear to meet my intent, I'm more wondering about how
pythonic they are.)

-- 
Michael F. Stemper
Isaiah 10:1-2