From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-01-31T16:16:13+09:00
Subject: Re: break out of a loop

On Friday, January 31, 2003, 5:26:39 PM, Vivek wrote:


> Is there an idiomatic(or more elegant way) of finding out whether I
> exited a loop normally or because of an exceptional condition?

The key word is "exceptional".  Using exception handling is a good
option for what you want.

  class ApplicationException < Exception; end

  begin
    10.times do
      # some processing
      raise ApplicationException if some.condition
      # further processing
    end
  rescue ApplicationException
    # error handling
  end

Just in case you're unfamiliar with exception handling in general, be
aware that you needn't even handle it there.  If the loop code was in
a method "foo", you can do this:

  begin
    foo
  rescue ApplicationException
    ...
  end

The Pickaxe has all the details.

Regards,
Gavin