Re: error handling

Ian E. Stockdale (ies@nas.nasa.gov)
Fri, 23 May 1997 16:07:54 -0700 (PDT)

Jeff writes:
>error handler, I will only use it on comms. Who's going to try to use a
>communicator error handler on a window?

No one. On purpose, that is. I can imagine doing it by accident.

> Using (void *) is a very minor loss of type matching.

"Minor" here is one of those things that can't be proved. Type
matching is a good thing, but it is not the "be all and end all". We
have to guess at the consequences of keeping or dropping it here.

>can dispatch the error to an appropriate routine. This can be useful in a
>library environment (e.g. OOMPI) that can catch *all* errors, do some
>processing (perhaps profiling types of things) and then pass the error on
>to the user.

I think you can achieve the same results with "B", although perhaps it
is more difficult. My guess is that the common case will be served by
C type matching, and that the benefits obtained via (void *) don't
make up the deficit. We'll have to agree to disagree.

-Ian

-- 
Ian E. Stockdale	MRJ Technology Solutions, NASA Ames Research Center
ies@nas.nasa.gov	(415) 604-4628