CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonanacondaanaconda3
user18048269
user18048269

Reputation: 165

What are the reasons to use sys.exit() to wrap a function call?

In several Python scripts included with Anaconda, sys.exit() is applied to a main() function. Here's an example from a script to launch jupyter notebook :

import re
import sys

from jupyter_core.command import main

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.argv[0] = re.sub(r'(-script\.pyw?|\.exe)?$', '', sys.argv[0])
    sys.exit(main())

What's the purpose of using sys.exit() as a way to wrap the call of the function main() ? According to the Python documentation sys.exit() just raises a SystemExit exception signaling an intention to exit the interpreter (https://docs.python.org/3/library/sys.html#sys.exit).

Thanks.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1089

Answers (1)

FlyingTeller
FlyingTeller

Reputation: 20590

Read the next part of the documentation that you have linked:

sys.exit([arg]) Raise a SystemExit exception, signaling an intention to exit the interpreter.
The optional argument arg can be an integer giving the exit status.

So the argument is used as an exit code for the current process.

In the cases you mention where we have sys.exit(main()), the main() function itself returns an integer depending on how it ended which is then passed through as an exit code for sys.exit

Upvotes: 3

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