[joshuagvk]

I might be misunderstanding, but doesn't this

> You can't possibly know instantly all the exceptions to handle for a function (given it calls other functions w/ exceptions), whereas, if it returns a fixed bunch of error codes, then you can know why that specific function failed and handle appropriately.

presume that, despite not being able to know all exceptions to handle in advance, you somehow have knowledge of all error conditions in the event that you're using error codes?

[enriquto]

> presume that, despite not being able to know all exceptions to handle in advance, you somehow have knowledge of all error conditions in the event that you're using error codes?

I guess that it is indeed the case. If you call one function, you can read the documentation of said function and read about its return values, including error codes. This specification cannot not change if one of the libraries nested deep within this function is replaced. However, with exceptions, if you use a new implementation of a deeply nested function it may raise a new exception that nobody was aware of at the time of writing the outermost functions.

[JoshuaAshton]

Usually documentation tends to have this, or you can look at the function and immediately know what it will return, whereas with exceptions any passthrough errors are transparent.