scan-sexps throws an error - are there any substitutes?

scan-sexps throws an error - are there any substitutes?

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi all,

scan-sexps throws an error if it cannot move as many sexps as I want.
This is fine in interactive use, but not really helpful in Lisp code I’m
writing.  (For the curious: I’m trying to write a solid SLOC-counting
function, and I need moving by sexps to determine whether a string is
a docstring, which I want to exclude from the count.)  Any ideas what to
do?  I could rewrite it in Elisp, but is it a good idea?  I doubt so.

NB. I don't really use scan-sexps, I use backward-sexp, which is
seemingly a higher level function – but, unlike search functions, it
doesn't have a “noerror” argument.

TIA,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University

RE: scan-sexps throws an error - are there any substitutes?

[Drew Adams]

> scan-sexps throws an error if it cannot move as many sexps as I want.
> This is fine in interactive use, but not really helpful in Lisp code I’m
> writing.  (For the curious: I’m trying to write a solid SLOC-counting
> function, and I need moving by sexps to determine whether a string is
> a docstring, which I want to exclude from the count.)  Any ideas what to
> do?  I could rewrite it in Elisp, but is it a good idea?  I doubt so.
> 
> NB. I don't really use scan-sexps, I use backward-sexp, which is
> seemingly a higher level function – but, unlike search functions, it
> doesn't have a “noerror” argument.

You can wrap any code in `ignore-errors' to, well, ignore errors. ;-)

You can also use `condition-case' to ignore particular signals.

Re: scan-sexps throws an error - are there any substitutes?

[Marcin Borkowski]

On 2015-03-27, at 00:12, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:

>> scan-sexps throws an error if it cannot move as many sexps as I want.
>> This is fine in interactive use, but not really helpful in Lisp code I’m
>> writing.  (For the curious: I’m trying to write a solid SLOC-counting
>> function, and I need moving by sexps to determine whether a string is
>> a docstring, which I want to exclude from the count.)  Any ideas what to
>> do?  I could rewrite it in Elisp, but is it a good idea?  I doubt so.
>> 
>> NB. I don't really use scan-sexps, I use backward-sexp, which is
>> seemingly a higher level function – but, unlike search functions, it
>> doesn't have a “noerror” argument.
>
> You can wrap any code in `ignore-errors' to, well, ignore errors. ;-)

What a surprise! ;-)

> You can also use `condition-case' to ignore particular signals.

This will probably be better, thanks!

Best,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
Adam Mickiewicz University