[SciPy-dev] reimplementation of lfilter

[Sturla Molden]

David Cournapeau skrev:
> Oh, you certainly *can*, as we can use gcc to compile extensions
> against python built with MS compiler. But there are limitations -
> with C, those limitations are known, with C++, they become atrocious
> once you use the C++ runtime (RTTI, exception, etc...). I had to debug
> some stuff in sparsetools on windows 64 bits a few days ago, and this
> was horrible because the exceptions are lost between DLL.
>
>   
Mingw (g++) will statically link its own C++ runtime.  DLLs compiled 
with g++ do not share C++ runtime. This obviously is a problem if you 
need to propagate an exception from one DLL to another. MS Visual C++ 
does not have this issue.

You get the same issue in C if a DLL statically links its own C runtime, 
or two DLLs use different shared C runtimes.

> I call this a disadvantage :) And having exceptions in a language
> without gc causes more trouble than it worths IMHO. Exception-safe C++
> is incredibly hard to do right.
>   
I'd say exceptipn safe C++  is easy to do right, but C++ textbooks don't 
teach you how. They generally teach you all the mistakes you can do. And 
if a book has 'best practices' or 'effective' in the title, it is likely 
full of BS.

The main issue is to never -- ever -- open an allocated reource outside 
a constructor. That includes calling new or new[]. Always use 
std::vector instead of new[], unless you have an extremely good reason. 
Always deallocate resources in a destructor. Objects should always be 
put on the stack (unless allocated in a constructor), and references 
should be used instead of pointers.

For example, look at wxWidgets, that has an additional Destroy() method 
in the GUI classes. Destroy() must be called manually. This is a classic 
C++ mistake. Destroy() is not called automatically, so an exception will 
mess this up.

Sturla Molden






>   
>> In C, we can achieve almost the same effect using
>> setjmp/longjmp. Is that bad style as well?
>>     
>
> The standard way to handle errors in C code using the python API is
> goto. It works well, and if you need to jump several calls, you can
> always use python exception mechanism.
>
> cheers,
>
> David
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