[plug] What was that? (firewall breached?)

[Craig Ringer]

>>>Too bad the shell doesn't have anything like Python's try blocks.
>>
>>What makes you say that?
> 
> Ooops, I didn't quote very well. I meant "what makes you say 'the shell
> doesn't have anything like Python's try blocks'", not "what makes you say
> 'too bad'".

Perhaps ignorance, if it does in fact have such structures. I've never 
seen them used in any shell scripting, nor heard mention of them before, 
but if there's a facility like that available in common shells I'll be 
glad to hear of it. In fairness I should've said 'bash' not 'the shell' 
since for all I know tcsh for example may have better scripting 
features. (Its certainly got a nicer syntax - I refused to use anything 
but csh for years after first getting access to UNIX, because 
berkley-shell derived shells had syntax that just didn't make any sense 
to me).

So ... how do you do it, if it can be done?

Craig