Exception Handling

Exception handlers don’t just handle exceptions if they occur immediately in the try clause, but also if they occur inside functions that are called (even indirectly) in the try clause. For example:

>>> def this_fails():
...     x = 1/0
...
>>> try:
...     this_fails()
... except ZeroDivisionError as err:
...     print('Handling run-time error:', err)
...

Handling run-time error: division by zero

Raising Exceptions

The raise statement allows the programmer to force a specified exception to occur. For example:

>>> raise NameError('HiThere')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: HiThere

The sole argument to raise indicates the exception to be raised. This must be either an exception instance or an exception class (a class that derives from Exception). If an exception class is passed, it will be implicitly instantiated by calling its constructor with no arguments:

raise ValueError # shorthand for 'raise ValueError()'

If you need to determine whether an exception was raised but don’t intend to handle it, a simpler form of the raise statement allows you to re-raise the exception:

>>> try:
...     raise NameError('HiThere')
... except NameError:
...     print('An exception flew by!')
...     raise
...
An exception flew by!
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
NameError: HiThere

User-defined Exceptions

Programs may name their own exceptions by creating a new exception class. Exceptions should typically be derived from the Exception class, either directly or indirectly.

Exception classes can be defined which do anything any other class can do, but are usually kept simple, often only offering a number of attributes that allow information about the error to be extracted by handlers for the exception. When creating a module that can raise several distinct errors, a common practice is to create a base class for exceptions defined by that module, and subclass that to create specific exception classes for different error conditions:

class Error(Exception):
    """Base class for exceptions in this module."""
    pass

class InputError(Error):
    """Exception raised for errors in the input.

    Attributes:
        expression -- input expression in which the error occurred
        message -- explanation of the error
    """

    def __init__(self, expression, message):
        self.expression = expression
        self.message = message

class TransitionError(Error):
    """Raised when an operation attempts a state transition that's not
    allowed.
    Attributes:
        previous -- state at beginning of transition
        next -- attempted new state
        message -- explanation of why the specific transition is not allowed
    """

    def __init__(self, previous, next, message):
        self.previous = previous
        self.next = next
        self.message = message

Most exceptions are defined with names that end in “Error”, similar to the naming of the standard exceptions.

Many standard modules define their own exceptions to report errors that may occur in functions they define.

Defining Clean-up Actions

The try statement has another optional clause which is intended to define clean-up actions that must be executed under all circumstances.

For example:

>>> try:
...     raise KeyboardInterrupt
... finally:
...     print('Goodbye, world!')
...
Goodbye, world!
KeyboardInterrupt
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>

If a finally clause is present, the finally clause will execute as the last task before the try statement completes. The finally clause runs whether or not the try statement produces an exception.

If an exception occurs during execution of the try clause, the exception may be handled by an except clause. If the exception is not handled by an except clause, the exception is re-raised after the finally clause has been executed.

An exception could occur during execution of an except or else clause. Again, the exception is re-raised after the finally clause has been executed.

If the try statement reaches a break, continue or return statement, the finally clause will execute just prior to the break, continue or return statement’s execution.

If a finally clause includes a return statement, the returned value will be the one from the finally clause’s return statement, not the value from the try clause’s return statement.

For example:

>>> def bool_return():
...     try:
...         return True
...     finally:
...         return False
...
>>> bool_return()
False
A more complicated example:

>>>
>>> def divide(x, y):
...     try:
...         result = x / y
...     except ZeroDivisionError:
...         print("division by zero!")
...     else:
...         print("result is", result)
...     finally:
...         print("executing finally clause")
...
>>> divide(2, 1)
result is 2.0
executing finally clause
>>> divide(2, 0)
division by zero!
executing finally clause
>>> divide("2", "1")
executing finally clause
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 3, in divide
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'str' and 'str'

The finally clause is executed in any event. The TypeError raised by dividing two strings is not handled by the except clause and therefore re-raised after the finally clause has been executed.

In real world applications, the finally clause is useful for releasing external resources (such as files or network connections), regardless of whether the use of the resource was successful.

Predefined Clean-up Actions

Some objects define standard clean-up actions to be undertaken when the object is no longer needed, regardless of whether or not the operation using the object succeeded or failed. Look at the following example, which tries to open a file and print its contents to the screen.

for line in open("myfile.txt"):
    print(line, end="")

The problem with this code is that it leaves the file open for an indeterminate amount of time after this part of the code has finished executing. This is not an issue in simple scripts, but can be a problem for larger applications. The with statement allows objects like files to be used in a way that ensures they are always cleaned up promptly and correctly.

with open("myfile.txt") as f:
    for line in f:
        print(line, end="")

After the statement is executed, the file f is always closed, even if a problem was encountered while processing the lines. Objects which, like files, provide predefined clean-up actions will indicate this in their documentation.