Question

I have a perl script, using standard-as-dirt Net::HTTP code, and perl 5.8.8.
I have come across an error condition in which the server returns 0 bytes of data when I call:

$_http_connection->read_response_headers;

Unfortunately, my perl script dies, because the Net::HTTP::Methods module has a “die” on line 306:

Server closed connection without sending any data back at
/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/Net/HTTP/Methods.pm line 306

And lines 305-307 are, of course:

unless (defined $status) {
die "Server closed connection without sending any data back";
}

How can I have my script “recover gracefully” from this situation, detecting the die and subsequently going into my own error-handling code, instead of dieing itself?

I’m sure this is a common case, and probably something simple, but I have not come across it before.

Answer 1

You can use eval { } to catch die() exceptions. Use $@ to inspect the thrown value:

eval {
    die "foo";
};
print "the block died with $@" if $@;

See http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/eval.html for details.