Python - Exception Handling

As in all High level languages, Python also provides ways for handling Issues.  Python provides 2 features to handle any unexpected error in the Python programs.

Exception Handling

Assertions

Exception Handling – An Exception is an event that occurs during an execution of program that disrupts the flow of the program. Normally when a Python program encounters with a situation that it cannot handle, it raises and exception.

These generated exceptions needs to be handled correctly or the program will terminate.

Try – Except – Python programs are written inside a try-except block so that if there is any code that might cause a issues, it will be handled. The program is written inside 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.

Here is the Exception Handling syntax,

try:

   You do your operations here;

   ......................

except ExceptionI:

   If there is ExceptionI, then execute this block.

except ExceptionII:

   If there is ExceptionII, then execute this block.

   ......................

else:

   If there is no exception then execute this block.

Some important points to remember are,

1) a single try statement can have multiple except Statements so that  when a try block contains statements that may throw a different type of exceptions.

2) We can have our own generic except clause, which can handle exceptions.

3) The else clause in the except statement above is executed only when there are no exceptions raised

AN Example for exception handling would look like this,

>>> try:

...     fh = open("Master.txt","w")

...     print fh.name

... except IOError:

...     print "Error Cannot Find File"

... else:

...     print "File Obtained"

...

Master.txt

File Obtained

Except Statement with no Exceptions – In the above snippet, if we observe we have an IOError defined in the except clause. We can also write except clause with no exceptions defined. This is considered a bad programming practice though it catches all the exceptions but will not let the programmer know what exactly the Exceptions is.

You can also use the same except statement to handle multiple exceptions like,

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.

Finally Clause - An exception allows one to handle any exceptions raised but there will be some cases where though an exception raised, a piece of code needs to be executed. Such sort of code is written in Finally. Consider when file is opened in read mode and tried to write to it , then an exception is thrown and handled but at-last the opened file needs to be closed. In this cases we write the closing of file in the finally block. An syntax would look like this,

try:

   Operations Here

   Due to any exception, this may be skipped.

finally:

   This would always be executed.

Exception Arguments – An Exception in Python can have an argument which gives additional information about the problem or the exception caught. The syntax will be like,

>>> def ret_value(var):

...     try:

...             return int(var)

...     except ValueError,Argument:

...             print "Argument Passed",Argument

...

>>> ret_value("hello WOrld")

Argument Passed invalid literal for int(): hello World

The variable receives 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.

Raising an Exception – An Exception can be raised when certain Exceptions are caught. Consider we have our own custom exceptions raised when specific conditions met. Python allows us to raise exceptions like,

raise [Exception [, args [, traceback]]]

An Example of Raising an Exception will be,

>>> def fun_name(var):

...     if(var < 1):

...             raise "Invalid Var",var

...

>>> fun_name(0)

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?

  File "<stdin>", line 3, in fun_name

Invalid Var: 0