Re: why does exit() print its argument?

Hi, > How about if we overload it a bit. I think anybody who does exit(1) is > expecting 1 to be set as the return status True, exit is the 'expected' name for this behaviour IMHO. > whereas someone who does > exit('something bad happened') is expecting the string to be shown a-la > die(). So let's just check the arg and do the appropriate thing. I would > be very surprised if that broke anything. You could do this, but I don't think it is ..realy.. needed. It would make the function a little more complicated to understand, but it wouldn't break backwards compatibility as much. I am for changing exit() to do the 'expected' thing, and break a 'little' backwards compatibility. Usualy I am very much against breaking backwards compatibility, but in this case I think it's the best thing to do... Because: - It's already documented that way - It's the 'expected' behaviour (from other languages, and from the docs) As Rasmus said: It would be surprising if this broke a lot of (or even any) code. Sander.