Instead of calling the exception directly, I have seen it is subclassed with nothing in it or a pass statement. How does it help Python internally to subclass a base class, in this manner? Does it change namespace or signature? How?
class ACustomException(Exception):
pass
class BCustomException(Exception):
pass
Raising Exception is like telling the doctor "Something's wrong" and then refusing to answer any questions. Compare:
try:
with open("foo.json", "rt") as r:
new_count = json.load(r)["count"] + 1
except Exception:
# Is the file missing?
# Is the file there, but not readable?
# Is the file readable, but does not contain valid JSON?
# Is the file format okay, but the data's not a dict with `count`?
# Is the entry `count` there, but is not a number?
print("Something's wrong")
# I don't care. You figure it out.
and
try:
with open("data.json", "rt") as r:
new_count = json.load(r)["count"] + 1
except FileNotFoundError:
print("File is missing.")
except PermissionError:
print("File not readable.")
except json.decoder.JSONDecoderError:
print("File is not valid JSON.")
except KeyError:
print("Cannot find count.")
except TypeError:
print("Count is not a number.")
If you are making a library, you can use the predefined exception classes where appropriate — but sometimes you need to communicate errors that Python creators never thought about, or you need to make a finer distinction than the existing exceptions do. This is when you'd create a custom exception.
For example, Django will define django.contrib.auth.models.User.DoesNotExist exception to communicate that the code tried to look for a User in the database, but no User matching the given criteria could be found. Being able to catch django.contrib.auth.models.User.DoesNotExist is like being a doctor, and getting a patient that not only tells you what hurts, but brings X-rays and a printed family history with them.
When you're handling exceptions with try-except, you're catching them by name, so having specific names helps you handle them.
For example, if a function raises Exception for any error, the catching logic gets complicated:
def foobar():
if FOO:
raise Exception('FOO happened')
elif BAR:
raise Exception('BAR happened')
try:
foobar()
except Exception as e:
if e.args == ('FOO happened',):
print('Handling FOO')
elif e.args == ('BAR happened',):
print('Handling BAR')
else:
raise
On the other hand if you have subclassed exceptions, the catching logic is simple:
class FooError(Exception):
pass
class BarError(Exception):
pass
def function():
if FOO:
raise FooError('FOO happened')
elif BAR:
raise BarError('BAR happened')
try:
function()
except FooError:
print('Handling FOO')
except BarError:
print('Handling BAR')
It helps with determining 'what' the traceback issue is referring to in case of maybe a web service that you maybe running, so it's not low-level or the generic errors you normally get back rather the exception class that would be used.
To be more specific with an example:
val = int(input('Enter a number:'))
try:
val *= val
except ValueError as e:
raise e
print(val)
### ValueError will be raised if user inputs something other than a number
### this raise e will return the actual error message saying
### ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'ok'
In your case, you could still raise your exception keeping ValueError as the except to be handled for, like this:
val = int(input('Enter a number:'))
try:
val *= val
except ValueError as e:
raise ACustomException('some debug statement referring to the cause of the error')
print(val)
### now this will raise your exception class besides the ValueError exception, with a debug statement if you choose to have one in it.
Related
If have a function were I request some data from a website but when I get an error I want to print the error and restart my code. But I don't know the exact code, can please someone help me? This is a code example:
import time
input1 = input("Blabla: ")
def repeat():
try:
if input1 == "123":
raise "Error: 123"
except Exception as e:
print(e)
time.sleep(5) # Wait 5 seconds
repeat() # Rerun code
repeat()
When I run this code I get the error 'exceptions must derive from BaseException'. Can someone help me?
You can't just raise random strings as an exception. If you want to raise a general exception without defining a relevant type, just raise Exception, replacing:
raise "Error: 123"
with:
raise Exception("Error: 123") # The "Error: " should probably be removed
Alternatively, if you can use a more specific error, do so. If 123 is invalid because the value is wrong, use ValueError instead of Exception. If there is some more specific reason, make a subclass to make it easier for others to catch, e.g. (at top level in the module):
class SpecialValueError(ValueError):
pass
so you can do:
raise SpecialValueError("Error: 123")
and people can catch it specifically, or via plain except ValueError:, except Exception:, etc.
Right now you are printing the error object's str while you need to print it's representation
Try this:
def repeat():
try:
if input1 == "123":
raise Exception("Error: 123") # You need to use an Exception class
except Exception as e:
print(repr(e)) # Notice I added repr()
time.sleep(5)
repeat()
Exception's Representation vs Exception's String
String:
try:
raise Exception("Exception I am!")
except Exception as e:
print(e)
# Output: Exception I am!
Representation:
try:
raise Exception("Exception I am!")
except Exception as e:
print(repr(e))
# Output: Exception('Exception I am!')
I think this should be a bit tricky but somehow feasible, but I need help.
I'd like to execute two functions from within my main() func.
I'd like to be able to catch exceptions from the two separately, but still being able to execute both and get the result of at least one of them if the other raises an exception.
Let's say I have:
def foo():
raise TypeError
def bar():
return 'bar'
If I do (adapted from here):
def multiple_exceptions(flist):
for f in flist:
try:
return f()
except:
continue
def main():
multiple_exceptions([foo, bar])
main()
main() would return 'bar', but I'd like to be able to still throw the exception from foo() after all. This way, I would still have the result of one of my functions and the information on the error occurred in the other.
You can capture and store the exceptions using 'as', e.g.:
try:
raise Exception('I am an error!')
print('The poster messed up error-handling code here.') #should not be displayed
except Exception as Somename:
print(Somename.message)
# you'll see the error message displayed as a normal print result;
# you could do print(stuff, file=sys.stderr) to print it like an error without aborting
print('Code here still works, the function did not abort despite the error above')
...or you can do:
except Exception as Somename:
do_stuff()
raise Somename
Thanks for the comments.
I solved by doing this:
def multiple_exceptions(flist):
exceptions = []
for f in flist:
try:
f()
except Exception as e:
exceptions.append(e.message)
continue
return exceptions
def main():
multiple_exceptions([foo, bar])
error_messages = main() # list of e.messages occurred (to be raised whenever I want)
Then I can raise my exception like e.g. raise Exception(error_messages[0]) (I only care about the first in this case let's say).
# phone num
try:
phone=soup.find("div", "phone-content")
for a in phone:
phone_result= str(a).get_text().strip().encode("utf-8")
print "Phone information:", phone_result
except ValueError:
phone_result="Error"
My program stops when there is a uni-code error but i want to use try except to avoid terminating the program. how can i do it?
I get different types of errors. i want something which just doesnt terminate the loop no matter whatever the error. just i want to skip the part of the loop which has error
By using
try:
...
except:
...
You could always catch every error in your try block attempt. The problem with THAT is that you'll catch even KeyboardInterrupt and SystemExit
However, it's better to catch Errors you're prepared to handle so that you don't hide bugs.
try:
...
except UnicodeError as e:
handle(e)
At a minimum, you should at least be as specific as catching the StandardError.
Demonstrated using your code:
try:
phone=soup.find("div", "phone-content")
for a in phone:
phone_result= str(a).get_text().strip().encode("utf-8")
print "Phone information:", phone_result
except StandardError as e:
phone_result="Error was {0}".format(e)
See the Exception Hierarchy to help you gauge the specificity of your error handling.
http://docs.python.org/2/library/exceptions.html#exception-hierarchy
I think you can try something like this first:
try:
whatever()
except Exception as e:
print e
Then you will get your desired(!) exception [if it already exists], and then change it to except somethingelse
Or you can go for custom exception which will look something like following, but you have raise it where necessary:
class ErrorWithCode(Exception):
def __init__(self, code):
self.code = code
def __str__(self):
return repr(self.code)
I'm currently writing a wrapper class. I want to be able to log exceptions properly but allow calling methods to be aware of exceptions which occur. My class looks like this:
import logging
log = logging.getLogger('module')
class MyAPIWrapper(library.APIClass):
def __init__(self):
self.log = logging.getLogger('module.myapiwrapper')
def my_wrapper_method(self):
try:
response = self.call_api_method()
return response.someData
except APIException, e:
self.log.exception('Oh noes!')
raise e #Throw exception again so calling code knows it happened
I'm a bit dubious about catching and exception just to log it and then re-raising it so the calling code can do something about it. What's the proper pattern here?
There is nothing wrong with catching to log. However, I'd recommend:
try:
response = self.call_api_method()
except APIException, e: # or 'as e' depending on your Python version
self.log.exception('Oh noes!')
raise #Throw exception again so calling code knows it happened
else:
return response.someData
By just doing a bare raise you preserve the full traceback info. It's also more explicit to put code that will only happen if you don't have an exception in the else clause, and it's clearer what line you're catching an exception from.
It would also be fine for the calling class to do the logging if it's handling the error anyway, but that may not be convenient for your app.
Edit: The documentation for try ... except ... else ... finally is under compound statements.
That method is correct, although instead of raise e you should just use raise, which will automatically re-raise the last exception. This is also one of the rare cases where using a blanket except is considered acceptable.
Here is an example very similar to what you are doing from the Python docs on Handling Exceptions:
The last except clause may omit the exception name(s), to serve as a wildcard. Use this with extreme caution, since it is easy to mask a real programming error in this way! It can also be used to print an error message and then re-raise the exception (allowing a caller to handle the exception as well):
import sys
try:
f = open('myfile.txt')
s = f.readline()
i = int(s.strip())
except IOError as (errno, strerror):
print "I/O error({0}): {1}".format(errno, strerror)
except ValueError:
print "Could not convert data to an integer."
except:
print "Unexpected error:", sys.exc_info()[0]
raise
You can just extend the standard Exception class and add the logger into there.
Like this:
class LoggedException(Exception):
""" An exception that also logs the msg to the given logger. """
def __init__(self, logger: logging.Logger, msg: str):
logger.error(msg)
super().__init__(msg)
I have a try/finally clause in my script. Is it possible to get the exact error message from within the finally clause?
No, at finally time sys.exc_info is all-None, whether there has been an exception
or not. Use:
try:
whatever
except:
here sys.exc_info is valid
to re-raise the exception, use a bare `raise`
else:
here you know there was no exception
finally:
and here you can do exception-independent finalization
The finally block will be executed regardless of whether an exception was thrown or not, so as Josh points out, you very likely don't want to be handling it there.
If you really do need the value of an exception that was raised, then you should catch the exception in an except block, and either handle it appropriately or re-raise it, and then use that value in the finally block -- with the expectation that it may never have been set, if there was no exception raised during execution.
import sys
exception_name = exception_value = None
try:
# do stuff
except Exception as e:
exception_name, exception_value, _ = sys.exc_info()
raise # or don't -- it's up to you
finally:
# do something with exception_name and exception_value
# but remember that they might still be none
Actually, other answers are bit vague. So, let me clarify it. You can always invoke sys.exc_info() from finally block. However, its output will vary depending whether exception has been actually raised.
import sys
def f(i):
try:
if i == 1:
raise Exception
except Exception as e:
print "except -> " + str(sys.exc_info())
finally:
print "finally -> " + str(sys.exc_info())
f(0)
f(1)
>>>
finally -> (None, None, None)
except -> (<type 'exceptions.Exception'>, Exception(), <traceback object at 0x029438F0>)
finally -> (<type 'exceptions.Exception'>, Exception(), <traceback object at 0x029438F0>)
Thus, you can always know in finally block, whether exception was raised, if it's first level function. But sys.exc_info() will behave differently when length of call stack exceeds 1, as shown in below example. For more information, refer to How sys.exc_info() works?
import sys
def f(i):
try:
if i == 1:
raise Exception
except Exception as e:
print "except -> " + str(sys.exc_info())
finally:
print "finally -> " + str(sys.exc_info())
def f1(i):
if i == 0:
try:
raise Exception('abc')
except Exception as e:
pass
f(i)
f1(0)
f1(1)
>>>
finally -> (<type 'exceptions.Exception'>, Exception('abc',), <traceback object at 0x02A33940>)
except -> (<type 'exceptions.Exception'>, Exception(), <traceback object at 0x02A33990>)
finally -> (<type 'exceptions.Exception'>, Exception(), <traceback object at 0x02A33990>)
I hope, it makes things bit clearer.
No, at finally time sys.exc_info is all-None, whether there has been an exception or not. Use [this instead]: …
The other answerer is correct in that you should be handling this inside the except clause.
However, for posterity / the record, here is an answer to the original question as stated:
import sys
try:
int("not an integer LOL")
except:
e = sys.exc_info()[1]
# isinstance(e, ValueError) == True
raise # this line is optional; I have it commented for the example output
else:
e = None # you should do this to avoid a NameError
finally:
print("I really wanted to access %s inside of a finally clause. And I'm doing so now."
% repr(e))
This will print something like:
I really wanted to access ValueError("invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'not an integer LOL'") inside of a finally clause. And I'm doing so now.
You'll want to do that in the except clause, not the finally.
Refer to: http://www.doughellmann.com/articles/Python-Exception-Handling/