Python Exceptions Handling

Python provides two very important features to handle any

unexpected error in your Python programs and to add
debugging capabilities in them:
– Exception Handling
– Assertions
What is Exception?
• An exception is an event, which occurs during the execution
of a program, that disrupts the normal flow of the program's
instructions.
• An exception is a Python object that represents an error.
• When a Python script raises an exception, it must either
handle the exception immediately otherwise it would
terminate and come out.
Syntax Errors

 Syntax errors, also known as parsing errors, are perhaps the

most common kind of error you encounter while you are still
learning Python.

 The parser repeats the offending line and displays a little

‘arrow’ pointing at the earliest point in the line where the error
was detected. The error is detected at the token preceding the
arrow. File name and line number are printed so you know
where to look in case the input came from a script.
Exceptions

• Even if a statement or expression is syntactically correct, it

may cause an error when an attempt is made to execute it.
Errors detected during execution are called exceptions and are
not unconditionally fatal. Most exceptions are not handled by
programs, however, and result in error messages like “cannot
divide by zero” or “cannot concatenate ‘str’ and ‘int’ objects”.
 Handling Exceptions

 It is possible to write programs that handle selected exceptions.

Consider the following, where a user-generated interruption is
signaled by raising the KeyboardInterrupt exception.

 First the 'try' clause is executed until an exception occurs, in

which case the rest of 'try' clause is skipped and the 'except'
clause is executed (depending on type of exception), and
execution continues. If an exception occurs which does not
match the exception named in the except clause, it is passed on
to outer try statements; if no handler is found, it is an
unhandled exception and execution stops.
• The last except clause (when many are declared) may omit the
exception name(s), to serve as a wildcard. This makes it very
easy to mask a real programming error. It can also be used to
print an error message and then re-raise the exception.
• The try-except statement has an optional else clause, which,
when present, must follow all except clauses. It is useful for
code that must be executed if the try clause does not raise an
exception.
Raising Exceptions

• The raise statement allows the programmer to force a specified

exception to occur.

• The sole argument to raise indicates the exception to be raised.

• A simpler form of the raise statement allows one to re-raise the
exception (if you don’t want to handle it):
User-defined Exceptions

 Programs may name their own exceptions by creating a new

exception class. These are derived from the Exception class,
either directly or indirectly.

 Here, the def__init__() of Exception has been overridden. The

new behavior simply creates the value attribute.
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.

 A finally clause is executed before leaving the try statement,

whether an exception has occurred or not. When an exception
has occurred in the try clause and has not been handled by an
except clause, it is re-raised after the finally clause has been
executed. The finally clause is also executed “on the way out”
when any other clause of the try statement is exited using
break/continue/return.
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.
• The problem with this code is that it leaves the file open for an
indefinite amount of time after the code has finished
executing.
• The ‘with’ statement allows objects like files to be used in a
way that ensures they are always cleaned up promptly and
correctly.
Handling an exception:
• If you have some suspicious code that may raise an exception, you can
defend your program by placing the suspicious code in a try: block.
• After the try: block, include an except: statement, followed by a block of
code which handles the problem as elegantly as possible.
Syntax:
try:
You do your operations here;
......................
except Exception I:
If there is ExceptionI, then execute this block.
except Exception II:
If there is ExceptionII, then execute this block.
......................
else:
If there is no exception then execute this block.
Here are few important points above the above mentioned
syntax:
• A single try statement can have multiple except statements.
This is useful when the try block contains statements that may
throw different types of exceptions.
• You can also provide a generic except clause, which handles
any exception.
• After the except clause(s), you can include an else-clause. The
code in the else-block executes if the code in the try: block
does not raise an exception.
• The else-block is a good place for code that does not need the
try: block's protection.
Example:
try:
fh = open("testfile", "w")
fh.write("This is my test file for exception handling!!")
except IOError: print "Error: can\'t find file or read data"
else: print "Written content in the file successfully"
fh.close()
• This will produce following result:
Written content in the file successfully
The except clause with no exceptions:
You can also use the except statement with no exceptions defined as
follows:
try:
You do your operations here;
......................
except:
If there is any exception, then execute this block. ......................
else:
If there is no exception then execute this block.

This kind of a try-except statement catches all the exceptions that occur.
Using this kind of try-except statement is not considered a good
programming practice, though, because it catches all exceptions but does
not make the programmer identify the root cause of the problem that may
occur.
The except clause with multiple exceptions:
You can also use the same except statement to handle multiple
exceptions as follows:
try:
You do your operations here;
......................
except(Exception1[, Exception2[,...ExceptionN]]]):
If there is any exception from the given exception list, then
execute this block
.......................
else:
If there is no exception then execute this block.
Standard Exceptions:
Here is a list standard Exceptions available in Python: Standard
Exceptions
The try-finally clause:
You can use a finally: block along with a try: block. The finally block is a
place to put any code that must execute, whether the try-block raised an
exception or not. The syntax of the try-finally statement is this:
try:
You do your operations here;
......................
Due to any exception, this may be skipped.
finally:
This would always be executed.
......................
Note that you can provide except clause(s), or a finally clause, but not
both. You can not use else clause as well along with a finally clause.
Example:
try:
fh = open("testfile", "w")
fh.write("This is my test file for exception handling!!")
finally:
print "Error: can\'t find file or read data"

If you do not have permission to open the file in writing mode

then this will produce following result:
Error: can't find file or read data
Reading and Writing Files:
The file object provides a set of access methods to make our
lives easier. We would see how to use read() and write()
methods to read and write files.
The write() Method:
• The write() method writes any string to an open file. It is
important to note that Python strings can have binary data and
not just text.
• The write() method does not add a newline character ('\n') to
the end of the string:
Syntax:
fileObject.write(string);
Argument of an Exception:
An exception can have an argument, which is a value that gives additional
information about the problem. The contents of the argument vary by
exception. You capture an exception's argument by supplying a variable in
the except clause as follows:
try:
You do your operations here;
......................
except ExceptionType, Argument:
You can print value of Argument here...
• If you are writing the code to handle a single exception, you can have a
variable follow the name of the exception in the except statement. If you
are trapping multiple exceptions, you can have a variable follow the tuple
of the exception.
• This variable will receive the value of the exception mostly containing the
cause of the exception. The variable can receive a single value or multiple
values in the form of a tuple. This tuple usually contains the error string,
the error number, and an error location.
Example:
Following is an example for a single exception:
def temp_convert(var):
try:
return int(var)
except ValueError, Argument:
print "The argument does not contain numbers\n",
Argument
temp_convert("xyz");

• This would produce following result:

The argument does not contain numbers
invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'xyz'
Raising an exceptions:
You can raise exceptions in several ways by using the raise statement. The
general syntax for the raise statement.
Syntax:
raise [Exception [, args [, traceback]]]
• Here Exception is the type of exception (for example, NameError) and
argument is a value for the exception argument. The argument is optional;
if not supplied, the exception argument is None.
• The final argument, traceback, is also optional (and rarely used in
practice), and, if present, is the traceback object used for the exception
Example:
def functionName( level ):
if level < 1:
raise "Invalid level!", level
# The code below to this would not be executed
# if we raise the exception
Note: In order to catch an exception, an "except" clause must
refer to the same exception thrown either class object or
simple string. For example to capture above exception we
must write our except clause as follows:
try:
Business Logic here...
except "Invalid level!":
Exception handling here...
else:
Rest of the code here...
User-Defined Exceptions:
• Python also allows you to create your own exceptions by deriving classes
from the standard built-in exceptions.
• Here is an example related to RuntimeError. Here a class is created that is
subclassed from RuntimeError. This is useful when you need to display
more specific information when an exception is caught.
• In the try block, the user-defined exception is raised and caught in the
except block. The variable e is used to create an instance of the class
Networkerror.
class Networkerror(RuntimeError):
def __init__(self, arg):
self.args = arg
• So once you defined above class, you can raise your exception as follows:
try:
raise Networkerror("Bad hostname")
except Networkerror,e:
print e.args