How to create an exit message

Question

Is there a one line function call that quits the program and displays a message? I know in Perl it's as simple as:

die("Message goes here")

I'm tired of typing this:

puts "Message goes here"
exit

A small comment, your `puts` writes to stdout, whereas `die` writes to stderr, so: `$stderr.puts "Message goes here"`. — cdarke, Mar 06 '12 at 10:39
I know that this wasn't an answer, but it answered my question, thanks — Patrick, Jul 27 '12 at 05:10
Just for the reference, in Python it is `sys.exit("Message goes to stderr")`. — anatoly techtonik, Dec 24 '14 at 14:40

score 371 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 03 '17 at 17:31

371

The abort function does this. For example:

abort("Message goes here")

Note: the abort message will be written to STDERR as opposed to puts which will write to STDOUT.

edited Feb 03 '17 at 17:31

the Tin Man

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answered Sep 17 '08 at 18:50

Chris Bunch

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Wow! Nice find! Too bad they didn't just overload exit with this functionality.... – Mike Stone Sep 18 '08 at 10:59
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Note, abort exits the program with a status of false which represents a failure. exit by default exits with a status of true representing success. Make sure you use the right one for the situation. – Alex Spurling Nov 14 '11 at 18:59
1

re. Mike Stone's comment, it sometimes looks as though Ruby was written by a team of people who had no communication with one another, doesn't it? (Still, it's so easy to program in it.) – JellicleCat Mar 19 '12 at 16:34

Jörg W Mittag · Answer 2 · 2008-08-29T01:50:47.720

24

If you want to denote an actual error in your code, you could raise a RuntimeError exception:

raise RuntimeError, 'Message goes here'

This will print a stacktrace, the type of the exception being raised and the message that you provided. Depending on your users, a stacktrace might be too scary, and the actual message might get lost in the noise. On the other hand, if you die because of an actual error, a stacktrace will give you additional information for debugging.

edited Aug 29 '08 at 01:50

answered Aug 27 '08 at 05:25

Jörg W Mittag

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You don't need to mention RuntimeError to raise one (it's the default kind of exception raised) so the following code will suffice: raise 'Message goes here' – sunaku Mar 17 '10 at 01:22
sunaku - while your comment is perfectly valid, I often found that being more explicit can be useful, in particular for other people reading the code lateron. – shevy Jun 21 '17 at 18:12

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 27 '08 at 04:54

1

I've never heard of such a function, but it would be trivial enough to implement...

def die(msg)
  puts msg
  exit
end

Then, if this is defined in some .rb file that you include in all your scripts, you are golden.... just because it's not built in doesn't mean you can't do it yourself ;-)

answered Aug 27 '08 at 04:54

Mike Stone

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Turns out the 'abort' function does it (see my answer below) – Chris Bunch Sep 17 '08 at 18:51
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Why write code when the abort function does it for you? – Gary Haran Aug 01 '16 at 18:00
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@ChrisBunch This is **not** the same as the abort function: `exit` defaults to returning as if it has succeeded. `abort` returns a failure. `exit 1` will return a failure as well. – TemporalWolf Nov 18 '16 at 21:33

How to create an exit message

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