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Octave provides several ways of recovering from errors. There are
try
/catch
blocks,
unwind_protect
/unwind_protect_cleanup
blocks,
and finally the onCleanup
command.
The onCleanup
command associates an ordinary Octave variable (the
trigger) with an arbitrary function (the action). Whenever the Octave variable
ceases to exist—whether due to a function return, an error, or simply because
the variable has been removed with clear
—then the assigned function
is executed.
The function can do anything necessary for cleanup such as closing open file handles, printing an error message, or restoring global variables to their initial values. The last example is a very convenient idiom for Octave code. For example:
function rand42 old_state = rand ("state"); restore_state = onCleanup (@() rand ("state", old_state)); rand ("state", 42); … endfunction # rand generator state restored by onCleanup
Create a special object that executes a given function upon destruction.
If the object is copied to multiple variables (or cell or struct array elements) or returned from a function, function will be executed after clearing the last copy of the object. Note that if multiple local onCleanup variables are created, the order in which they are called is unspecified. For similar functionality See The unwind_protect Statement.