In this piece of code, I could write a simple except clause without writing Exception in front of it. I mean the last line could be like this :
except:
print('Hit an exception other than KeyError or NameError!')
What is the point of writing Exception in front of an except clause ?
try:
discounted_price(instrument, discount)
except KeyError:
print("There is a keyerror in your code")
except NameError:
print('There is a TypeError in your code')
except Exception:
print('an exception occured')
I tried writing an except clause without Exception keyword and it worked the same.
Thank you guys for your answers . I know the point of catching specific errors. If I want to ask more clearly , what is the difference between two clauses :
except Exception:
print('an exception occured')
except :
print('an exception occured')
The point of specifying the Exception is that ONLY that Exception will be caught, if you do not specify any Exception, then ALL Errors and Exceptions will be caught potentially masking bugs.
For example let's say that I want to read a file if it exists or otherwise print a message to the user, I can write:
try:
with ope("example.txt", "r") as f:
print(f.read())
except:
print("File not found")
But while this code runs fine without raising any exceptions, this code will never read the file, even if it exists!!!
This is because I wrote ope instead of open and the NameError was caught by my bare except, If I write the except in the correct way:
try:
with ope("example.txt", "r") as f:
print(f.read())
except FileNotFoundError:
print("File not found")
Now I can properly debug my code:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/riccardo/types.py", line 4, in <module>
with ope("example.txt", "r") as f:
NameError: name 'ope' is not defined
A bare expect
try:
...
except:
pass
or catching any exception whatsoever
try:
...
except Exception:
pass
are bad practice, because you can be hiding bug or be interfering with the normal procedure of the program.
You should only catch exception that you know how to handle, everything else you should let it propagate.
For some example:
Hide bug: it can hide some typo in your code as Caridorc example show making you think that you had a problem different than the real problem
Interfering with the normal procedure: you can make it an unexpectedly unkillable program or get in the way of the normal procedure of the program by discarding an exception that another part of the code was expecting.
like for example
while True:
try:
print("running")
except:
print("I'm immortal muahahaha")
this piece of code now you can't stop with you usual control-z (control-z throw and KeyboardInterrupt exception into your program) so you now need to close the whole interpreter/kill it with the task admin just to stop it, and if this was unintended you just introduced a new bug and depending on what you're doing it can be catastrophic.
To illustrate how catastrophic it can be, consider the following hypothetical case: imagine you make so benign function for a medical device and you put something like this
try:
...
except:
print("some error happens")
now it just so happens that while you piece of code was running a HeartAttack exception was raised and your catch it all and ignore piece of code will do, well, just that, and here is the twist this device was a pacemaker... well, congratulation you just killed the poor guy.
And that is why you should only catch the exception you know how to deal with, everything else you let it pass and hope that somebody along the line know how to deal with it, like in the example above, you and your piece of code don't know how to deal with a HeartAttack, but the pacemaker do and the pacemaker was the one that call your piece of code let it deal with it...
for a no so extreme example consider this simple code
def get_number_from_user():
while True:
try:
return int(input("write a number: "))
except:
print("not a valid number try again")
if your user was done with your program and this happens to be the thing running he/she might want to kill it with a control-z as you usually do with any program, but it will find that it doesn't work, the correct way here is to catch the error we know how to deal with in this case, namely ValueError, everything else isn't this function business
def get_number_from_user():
while True:
try:
return int(input("write a number: "))
except ValueError:
print("not a valid number try again")
You also ask about the difference between
try:
...
except:
pass
and this
try:
...
except Exception:
pass
the difference is that a bare except can catch any and all kind of exception, that in python is anything that is or inherit from BaseException that sit at the top of the exception hierarchy, while except Exception will catch only Exception itself or anything that inherit from it (the same apply for any particular exception you put there), this small distinction allow to make some exceptions more special than other, like the aforementioned KeyboardInterrupt that inherit from BaseException instead of Exception, and that is used to signal that the user wants to terminate this program, so you should do so and this distinction is made basically so new programmers don't shoot themselves in the foot when using except Exception
Just to add to the answer provided by #Caridorc, by specifying each error separately, you can run specific error handling code pertaining to that error when the exception arises. If for example the file does not exist, you can print message to that effect. If however, it fails to print because you mistyped g instead of f, you can print a message to say that the variable is not recognised ( separate code for separate error captures). For exmple:
g = 100 # Unrelated variable declared previously
try:
with open("example.txt", "r") as f:
x=print(f.read())
except FileNotFoundError:
print("File not found")
except AttributeError:
print("Reading wrong variable")
except Exception as e:
print("Unknown Error", e)
Note also the last exception except Exception as e:. This is the same as just except: but allows you to handle all other errors that do not fit onto previous captures and retrieve e - the error message that is generated by compiler. There is effectively no difference between except: and except Exception: in terms of execution
Consider the code:
a = 5
b = 0
x = a / b
Executing this will alert you to the fact that you have attempted to divide a float by zero but it will crash your code.
Now consider:
a = 5
b = 0
try:
x = a / b
except: # or 'except Exception:'
print("An exception was raised")
This will raise an exception that is handled by printing a message that an error occurred. You code will not crash but you do not know how to properly handle the code because you do not know what the exception was, just that one occurred.
Now consider:
a = 5
b = 0
try:
x = a / b
except Exception as e:
print("An exception was raised, generating error", e)
Now your code does not crash. Is handled and you know what the error was.
The purpose of writing "Exception" in front of an except clause is to catch all possible exceptions that can occur in the code. By specifying "Exception", you are telling the interpreter to handle any type of exception that might be raised. The more specific the exception specified in the except clause, the more targeted the handling of the exception can be. For example, if you only want to handle "KeyError" exceptions, you can specify that explicitly in the except clause, as in the first example.
I wonder how to best handle exceptions in python and to inform the user about it.
I came across the following ideas:
Option 1:
try:
do something
except MyError as e:
logger.error(e)
sys.exit(1)
next code
Option 2:
try:
do something
except MyError as e:
logger.error(e)
raise e
next code
Option: 3
try:
do something
except MyError as e:
logger.error(e)
else:
next code
All three differ in behavior, and you choose which one makes sense in your scenario.
In option #1, you're saying "This is a fatal error, but I want to die 'cleanly' instead of dumping a full traceback to screen."
With option #2, you're saying "I want to log the error, but I'm not handling it; maybe someone higher up the stack will?"; if nobody catches it, it behaves similarly to option #1, aside from (by default) dumping a traceback to the terminal.
With option #3, you're saying "This isn't a fatal error, and we can keep going even if it happens, but certain actions should only be done when the error doesn't occur."
I will note your option #2 is (usually) wrong; you want plain raise to reraise the exception without resetting the traceback or causing exception chaining (which raise e would do), making it behave as if you never caught the exception (aside from the logging output).
I am working on a simple automation script in Python, which could throw exceptions in various spots. In each of them I would like to log a specific message and exit the program. In order to do that, I raise SystemExit after catching the exception and handling it (performing specific logging operations and such).
In the top-level calling of main, I do the following:
if __name__ == "__main__":
try:
main()
except SystemExit: # handled exception
sys.exit(1)
except: # any unhandled exception
logging.error('Unexpected error: ', exc_info=True)
sys.exit(2)
However, using a bare except is something frowned upon. Is using an "exception tree" where I use a bare except to specify "anything but the exception that I've handled" a nonstandard way? Is there a better way to achieve this? I would still like to log these unhandled exceptions, even if they were not handled.
Edit: SystemExit is raised to note that an exception has been handled - no matter what the exception is in my case, I always want to stop running the scripts as any failure should result in an absolute failure.
The main reason I'm asking this is that PEP8 seems to consider using a bare except as an error, and even though I could use except BaseException, it should be just a syntactic difference. Is one way more standard than the other or is there another standard route of achieving this?
Bare exceptions trap things you do not want to trap, such as GeneratorExit. Do it this way:
except Exception as details:
logging.error('Unexpected error: {0}'.format(details))
The main issue with a bare except is that it can catch things like SystemExit and KeyboardInterrupt which are not standard 'code' errors and shouldn't usually be handled in the same way as an exception generated by your code. Using the Exception class doesn't cover those cases as they do not inherit from it, so it is more than a syntax difference.
https://docs.python.org/2/howto/doanddont.html#except
https://docs.python.org/3.1/howto/doanddont.html#except
If you want to handle those specific cases, then it is better to do so explicitly as you have done for SystemExit.
This worked for me:
try:
<code>
raise Exception("my error")
except Exception as e:
raise e
If my error occurs then the error message "my errror" is seen. If an unknown exception occurs then it displays the default exception handler's text. In either case an exception is raised and the script is halted.
I understand the try/except method. What I'm trying to do is:
try:
some_func1() #potentially raises error too
do_something_else() #error was raised
continue_doing_something_else() #continues here after handling error
except:
pass
In the above code, when the error is raised at do_something_else(), the error is handled but then the try statement is exited.
What I want is for python to continue whatever code that is after the line that causes the error. Assuming that an error can happen anywhere in the try statement so I can't just wrap the try/except around do_something_else() itself, is there a way to do this in python?
What you want to do (try with restart) is not possible in Python. Lisp can do it (http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/beyond-exception-handling-conditions-and-restarts.html), and you can implement it in Scheme using call/cc.
Just put the code that you want to do after the possible exception after the except. You may want to use finally (see https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/errors.html for the documentation):
try:
some_func1()
do_something_else() #error was raised
except:
handle_exception()
finally:
continue_doing_something_else() #continues here after handling error or if no error occurs
if continue_doing_something_else() can also throw exceptions, then put that in a try/except too:
try:
some_func1()
do_something_else() #error was raised
except:
handle_exception1()
try:
continue_doing_something_else()
except:
handle_exception2()
finally:
any_cleanup()
as a general rule, your exception handling should be kept as small in scope as possible while remaining sensible, consider excepting only the 'expected' exceptions and not all of them (e.g. except OSError: when attempting to open files)
I have some django code that resembles this (this is python 2.7.1)
try:
a = some_model.objects.get(some_field='foo') #this could except if for some reason it doesn't exist
method_that_throws_exception() #it won't reach this if we get a DoesNotExist
except some_model.DoesNotExist:
#if it doesn't exist create it then try again
a = some_model.objects.create(....)
try:
method_that_throws_exception() #this time lets say another exception is raised by method
print 'this should not print right?'
except Exception as e:
logging.error("error msg here")
The problem is the "this should not print" line is still being printed. I'm confused by this. I feel like I am probably overlooking something very simple but might be having some tunnel vision at the moment. Thanks in advance.
Update: also if I remove the nested try block the print below the call to the method that throws an exception still prints.
I figured it out, the method had a try block inside of it that Iw asn't raising out. adding raise in my exception handler inside the method_that_throws_exception() fixed my problem.