try ... after semantics

[Thomas Lindgren]

What is the semantics of try ... after? In particular,
what variable bindings are available in the after
body?

Q1: My guess is, one cannot rely on any bindings made
inside the try being available? (which is why the
example below, from the erlang reference manual, 6.19,
crashes if the file:open/2 does not return {ok,...})

termize_file(Name) ->
    {ok,F} = file:open(Name, [read,binary]),
    try
        {ok,Bin} = file:read(F, 1024*1024),
        binary_to_term(Bin)
    after
        file:close(F)
    end.

(In Java, since variables can change their values
there, I suppose one would push the file:open/2 call
into the try instead.)

Unfortunately, if we want the call to never throw an
exception, this leads to somewhat convoluted code (as
far as I can tell):

termize_file(Name) ->
   try file:open(Name, [read,binary]) of
      {ok, F} ->
         %% original code
         try ... after ... end;
      Else ->
         Else
   end.

Q2: So, is there a better way of expressing the "safe"
termize_file using try?

Best,
Thomas


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