Related
I just noticed that the following code written in Python 2.x doesn't go to the except-block
class MyException:
pass
try:
raise MyException()
except Exception:
print('Exception')
Output
Traceback (most recent call last): File "main.py", line 5, in
<module>
raise MyException()
__main__.MyException: <__main__.MyException instance at 0x021E9DC8>
while the following code does:
try:
raise 'str'
except Exception:
print('Exception')
Output
Exception
The same goes for raise 0 expression, for example.
Why? What is the reason behind this?
At least for python 2.7:
raise 'str' and raise 0 will both raise TypeError. This will be handled by the except Exception branch in your code.
Since your own class MyException doesn't inherit from Exception, the except branch is never executed. You could still do:
try:
raise MyException()
except MyException:
print('Exception')
In your example the output __main__.MyException: <__main__.MyException instance at 0x021E9DC8> was printed by sys.excepthook (the top-level exception handler), because you never caught the exception.
What does raise do, if it's not inside a try or except clause, but simply as the last statement in the function?
def foo(self):
try:
# some code that raises an exception
except Exception as e:
pass
# notice that the "raise" is outside
raise
This example prints 1 but not 2 so it must be that the last raise statement simply raises the last thrown exception.
def foo():
try:
raise Exception()
except Exception as e:
pass
print 1
raise
print 2
if __name__ == '__main__':
foo()
Any official documentation for this type of usage pattern?
As Russell said,
A bare raise statement re-raises the last caught exception.
It doesn't matter whether this is happening in a try-except block or not. If there has been a caught exception, then calling raise will re-raise that exception. Otherwise, Python will complain that the previously caught exception is None and raise a TypeError because None is not something that can actually be raised.
As tdelaney said, it doesn't seem to make sense to do this except in an error-handling function. Personally I'd say that it doesn't even belong in an error-handling function, as the raise should still be in the except clause. Someone could use this in an attempt to execute code whether or not an error occurs, but a finally clause is the proper way to do that. Another possibility would be using this as a way to determine if an error occurred while executing the function, but there are much better ways to do that (such as returning an extra value that indicates if/where an error occurred).
A Bare raise reraises the current exception. This usually makes no sense at the end of a function, unless the function is called in an exception:
By itself, the raise is invalid and python throws its own exception
>>> def x():
... raise
>>> x()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 2, in x
TypeError: exceptions must be old-style classes or derived from BaseException, not NoneType
But if called within an exception block, it acts sanely
>>> try:
... int('a')
... except:
... x()
...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 4, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'a'
>>>
EDIT
This might be a perfectly reasonable thing to do if the function is attempting some sort of recovery. The function could fix what's broken, log a message, trigger the fire extinguishers, etc... and raise if it still thinks the system is in error.
A bare raise statement re-raises the last caught exception. https://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/errors.html#raising-exceptions
From this documentation we can read:
If no expressions are present, raise re-raises the last exception that
was active in the current scope. If no exception is active in the
current scope, a TypeError exception is raised indicating that this is
an error (if running under IDLE, a Queue.Empty exception is raised
instead).
This means that, in the case of your code, if no exception occurs within the try ... except block, then you are forcing the program to raise a TypeError exception to happen.
I had a problem like this where I needed to raise a previously caught exception outside the try/except block if my function didn't return a value. I did a bit of looking around in the sys and traceback modules, but couldn't find a good method to do this, so I just ended up storing the exception outside the block.
def foo():
caught = None
try:
raise Exception
except Exception as e:
caught = e
pass
raise caught
f = foo()
Output
Traceback (most recent call last):
line 13, in <module>
line 10, in foo
line 5, in foo
Exception
Clearly this isn't useful in the above example, but it's pretty useful if you need to try something quite a few times in a loop and re-raise. My specific need was for an HTTP request retry mechanism.
import time
def foo(key):
caught = None
for i in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]:
try:
return d[key]
except KeyError as e:
caught = e
print(i)
time.sleep(i)
continue
raise caught
d = {"bar": "baz"}
f = foo(key="baz")
Output
1
2
3
4
5
Traceback (most recent call last):
line 19, in <module>
line 15, in foo
line 8, in foo
KeyError: 'baz'
What's the difference between raise and raise from in Python?
try:
raise ValueError
except Exception as e:
raise IndexError
which yields
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "tmp.py", line 2, in <module>
raise ValueError
ValueError
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "tmp.py", line 4, in <module>
raise IndexError
IndexError
and
try:
raise ValueError
except Exception as e:
raise IndexError from e
which yields
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "tmp.py", line 2, in <module>
raise ValueError
ValueError
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "tmp.py", line 4, in <module>
raise IndexError from e
IndexError
The difference is that when you use from, the __cause__ attribute is set and the message states that the exception was directly caused by. If you omit the from then no __cause__ is set, but the __context__ attribute may be set as well, and the traceback then shows the context as during handling something else happened.
Setting the __context__ happens if you used raise in an exception handler; if you used raise anywhere else no __context__ is set either.
If a __cause__ is set, a __suppress_context__ = True flag is also set on the exception; when __suppress_context__ is set to True, the __context__ is ignored when printing a traceback.
When raising from a exception handler where you don't want to show the context (don't want a during handling another exception happened message), then use raise ... from None to set __suppress_context__ to True.
In other words, Python sets a context on exceptions so you can introspect where an exception was raised, letting you see if another exception was replaced by it. You can also add a cause to an exception, making the traceback explicit about the other exception (use different wording), and the context is ignored (but can still be introspected when debugging). Using raise ... from None lets you suppress the context being printed.
See the raise statement documenation:
The from clause is used for exception chaining: if given, the second expression must be another exception class or instance, which will then be attached to the raised exception as the __cause__ attribute (which is writable). If the raised exception is not handled, both exceptions will be printed:
>>> try:
... print(1 / 0)
... except Exception as exc:
... raise RuntimeError("Something bad happened") from exc
...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
ZeroDivisionError: int division or modulo by zero
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 4, in <module>
RuntimeError: Something bad happened
A similar mechanism works implicitly if an exception is raised inside an exception handler or a finally clause: the previous exception is then attached as the new exception’s __context__ attribute:
>>> try:
... print(1 / 0)
... except:
... raise RuntimeError("Something bad happened")
...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
ZeroDivisionError: int division or modulo by zero
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 4, in <module>
RuntimeError: Something bad happened
Also see the Built-in Exceptions documentation for details on the context and cause information attached to exceptions.
PEP 3134, Exception Chaining and Embedded Tracebacks introduced chaining of exceptions (implicitly chained with explicit raise EXCEPTION or implicit raise, and explicitly chained with explicit raise EXCEPTION from CAUSE). Here are the relevant paragraphs to understand their usage:
Motivation
During the handling of one exception (exception A), it is possible that another exception (exception B) may occur. In today’s Python (version 2.4), if this happens, exception B is propagated outward and exception A is lost. In order to debug the problem, it is useful to know about both exceptions. The __context__ attribute retains this information automatically.
Sometimes it can be useful for an exception handler to intentionally re-raise an exception, either to provide extra information or to translate an exception to another type. The __cause__ attribute provides an explicit way to record the direct cause of an exception.
[…]
Implicit Exception Chaining
Here is an example to illustrate the __context__ attribute:
def compute(a, b):
try:
a/b
except Exception, exc:
log(exc)
def log(exc):
file = open('logfile.txt') # oops, forgot the 'w'
print >>file, exc
file.close()
Calling compute(0, 0) causes a ZeroDivisionError. The compute() function catches this exception and calls log(exc), but the log() function also raises an exception when it tries to write to a file that wasn’t opened for writing.
In today’s Python, the caller of compute() gets thrown an IOError. The ZeroDivisionError is lost. With the proposed change, the instance of IOError has an additional __context__ attribute that retains the ZeroDivisionError.
[…]
Explicit Exception Chaining
The __cause__ attribute on exception objects is always initialized to None. It is set by a new form of the raise statement:
raise EXCEPTION from CAUSE
which is equivalent to:
exc = EXCEPTION
exc.__cause__ = CAUSE
raise exc
In the following example, a database provides implementations for a few different kinds of storage, with file storage as one kind. The database designer wants errors to propagate as DatabaseError objects so that the client doesn’t have to be aware of the storage-specific details, but doesn’t want to lose the underlying error information.
class DatabaseError(Exception):
pass
class FileDatabase(Database):
def __init__(self, filename):
try:
self.file = open(filename)
except IOError, exc:
raise DatabaseError('failed to open') from exc
If the call to open() raises an exception, the problem will be reported as a DatabaseError, with a __cause__ attribute that reveals the IOError as the original cause.
Enhanced Reporting
The default exception handler will be modified to report chained exceptions. The chain of exceptions is traversed by following the __cause__ and __context__ attributes, with __cause__ taking priority. In keeping with the chronological order of tracebacks, the most recently raised exception is displayed last; that is, the display begins with the description of the innermost exception and backs up the chain to the outermost exception. The tracebacks are formatted as usual, with one of the lines:
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
or
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
between tracebacks, depending whether they are linked by __cause__ or __context__ respectively. Here is a sketch of the procedure:
def print_chain(exc):
if exc.__cause__:
print_chain(exc.__cause__)
print '\nThe above exception was the direct cause...'
elif exc.__context__:
print_chain(exc.__context__)
print '\nDuring handling of the above exception, ...'
print_exc(exc)
[…]
PEP 415, Implement Context Suppression with Exception Attributes then introduced suppression of exception contexts (with explicit raise EXCEPTION from None). Here is the relevant paragraph to understand its usage:
Proposal
A new attribute on BaseException, __suppress_context__, will be introduced. Whenever __cause__ is set, __suppress_context__ will be set to True. In particular, raise exc from cause syntax will set exc.__suppress_context__ to True. Exception printing code will check for that attribute to determine whether context and cause will be printed. __cause__ will return to its original purpose and values.
There is precedence for __suppress_context__ with the print_line_and_file exception attribute.
To summarize, raise exc from cause will be equivalent to:
exc.__cause__ = cause
raise exc
where exc.__cause__ = cause implicitly sets exc.__suppress_context__.
So in PEP 415, the sketch of the procedure given in PEP 3134 becomes the following:
def print_chain(exc):
if exc.__cause__:
print_chain(exc.__cause__)
print '\nThe above exception was the direct cause...'
elif exc.__context__ and not exc.__suppress_context__:
print_chain(exc.__context__)
print '\nDuring handling of the above exception, ...'
print_exc(exc)
The shortest answer. PEP-3134 says it all. raise Exception from e sets the __cause__ filed of the new exception.
A longer answer from the same PEP:
__context__ field would be set implicitly to the original error inside except: block unless told not to with __suppress_context__ = True.
__cause__ is just like context but has to be set explicitly by using from syntax
traceback will always chain when you call raise inside an except block. You can get rid of traceback by a) swallowing an exception except: pass or by messing with sys.exc_info() directly.
The long answer
import traceback
import sys
class CustomError(Exception):
def __init__(self):
super().__init__("custom")
def print_exception(func):
print(f"\n\n\nEXECURTING FUNCTION '{func.__name__}' \n")
try:
func()
except Exception as e:
"Here is result of our actions:"
print(f"\tException type: '{type(e)}'")
print(f"\tException message: '{e}'")
print(f"\tException context: '{e.__context__}'")
print(f"\tContext type: '{type(e.__context__)}'")
print(f"\tException cause: '{e.__cause__}'")
print(f"\tCause type: '{type(e.__cause__)}'")
print("\nTRACEBACKSTART>>>")
traceback.print_exc()
print("<<<TRACEBACKEND")
def original_error_emitter():
x = {}
print(x.does_not_exist)
def vanilla_catch_swallow():
"""Nothing is expected to happen"""
try:
original_error_emitter()
except Exception as e:
pass
def vanilla_catch_reraise():
"""Nothing is expected to happen"""
try:
original_error_emitter()
except Exception as e:
raise e
def catch_replace():
"""Nothing is expected to happen"""
try:
original_error_emitter()
except Exception as e:
raise CustomError()
def catch_replace_with_from():
"""Nothing is expected to happen"""
try:
original_error_emitter()
except Exception as e:
raise CustomError() from e
def catch_reset_trace():
saw_an_error = False
try:
original_error_emitter()
except Exception as e:
saw_an_error = True
if saw_an_error:
raise CustomError()
print("Note: This will print nothing")
print_exception(vanilla_catch_swallow)
print("Note: This will print AttributeError and 1 stack trace")
print_exception(vanilla_catch_reraise)
print("Note: This will print CustomError with no context but 2 stack traces")
print_exception(catch_replace)
print("Note: This will print CustomError with AttributeError context and 2 stack traces")
print_exception(catch_replace_with_from)
print("Note: This will brake traceback chain")
print_exception(catch_reset_trace)
Will result in the following output:
Note: This will print nothing
EXECURTING FUNCTION 'vanilla_catch_swallow'
Note: This will print AttributeError and 1 stack trace
EXECURTING FUNCTION 'vanilla_catch_reraise'
Exception type: '<class 'AttributeError'>'
Exception message: ''dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist''
Exception context: 'None'
Context type: '<class 'NoneType'>'
Exception cause: 'None'
Cause type: '<class 'NoneType'>'
TRACEBACKSTART>>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 11, in print_exception
func()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 41, in vanilla_catch_reraise
raise e
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 39, in vanilla_catch_reraise
original_error_emitter()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 27, in original_error_emitter
print(x.does_not_exist)
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist'
<<<TRACEBACKEND
Note: This will print CustomError with no context but 2 stack traces
EXECURTING FUNCTION 'catch_replace'
Exception type: '<class '__main__.CustomError'>'
Exception message: 'custom'
Exception context: ''dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist''
Context type: '<class 'AttributeError'>'
Exception cause: 'None'
Cause type: '<class 'NoneType'>'
TRACEBACKSTART>>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 46, in catch_replace
original_error_emitter()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 27, in original_error_emitter
print(x.does_not_exist)
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist'
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 11, in print_exception
func()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 48, in catch_replace
raise CustomError()
CustomError: custom
<<<TRACEBACKEND
Note: This will print CustomError with AttributeError context and 2 stack traces
EXECURTING FUNCTION 'catch_replace_with_from'
Exception type: '<class '__main__.CustomError'>'
Exception message: 'custom'
Exception context: ''dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist''
Context type: '<class 'AttributeError'>'
Exception cause: ''dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist''
Cause type: '<class 'AttributeError'>'
TRACEBACKSTART>>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 53, in catch_replace_with_from
original_error_emitter()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 27, in original_error_emitter
print(x.does_not_exist)
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'does_not_exist'
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 11, in print_exception
func()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 55, in catch_replace_with_from
raise CustomError() from e
CustomError: custom
<<<TRACEBACKEND
Note: This will brake traceback chain
EXECURTING FUNCTION 'catch_reset_trace'
Exception type: '<class '__main__.CustomError'>'
Exception message: 'custom'
Exception context: 'None'
Context type: '<class 'NoneType'>'
Exception cause: 'None'
Cause type: '<class 'NoneType'>'
TRACEBACKSTART>>>
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 11, in print_exception
func()
File "/Users/eugene.selivonchyk/repo/experiments/exceptions.py", line 64, in catch_reset_trace
raise CustomError()
CustomError: custom
<<<TRACEBACKEND
I have this try block in my code:
try:
do_something_that_might_raise_an_exception()
except ValueError as err:
errmsg = 'My custom error message.'
raise ValueError(errmsg)
Strictly speaking, I am actually raising another ValueError, not the ValueError thrown by do_something...(), which is referred to as err in this case. How do I attach a custom message to err? I try the following code but fails due to err, a ValueError instance, not being callable:
try:
do_something_that_might_raise_an_exception()
except ValueError as err:
errmsg = 'My custom error message.'
raise err(errmsg)
If you're lucky enough to only support python 3.x, this really becomes a thing of beauty :)
raise from
We can chain the exceptions using raise from.
try:
1 / 0
except ZeroDivisionError as e:
raise Exception('Smelly socks') from e
In this case, the exception your caller would catch has the line number of the place where we raise our exception.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 2, in <module>
1 / 0
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 4, in <module>
raise Exception('Smelly socks') from e
Exception: Smelly socks
Notice the bottom exception only has the stacktrace from where we raised our exception. Your caller could still get the original exception by accessing the __cause__ attribute of the exception they catch.
with_traceback
Or you can use with_traceback.
try:
1 / 0
except ZeroDivisionError as e:
raise Exception('Smelly socks').with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
Using this form, the exception your caller would catch has the traceback from where the original error occurred.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 2, in <module>
1 / 0
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 4, in <module>
raise Exception('Smelly socks').with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
File "test.py", line 2, in <module>
1 / 0
Exception: Smelly socks
Notice the bottom exception has the line where we performed the invalid division as well as the line where we reraise the exception.
Update: For Python 3, check Ben's answer
To attach a message to the current exception and re-raise it:
(the outer try/except is just to show the effect)
For python 2.x where x>=6:
try:
try:
raise ValueError # something bad...
except ValueError as err:
err.message=err.message+" hello"
raise # re-raise current exception
except ValueError as e:
print(" got error of type "+ str(type(e))+" with message " +e.message)
This will also do the right thing if err is derived from ValueError. For example UnicodeDecodeError.
Note that you can add whatever you like to err. For example err.problematic_array=[1,2,3].
Edit: #Ducan points in a comment the above does not work with python 3 since .message is not a member of ValueError. Instead you could use this (valid python 2.6 or later or 3.x):
try:
try:
raise ValueError
except ValueError as err:
if not err.args:
err.args=('',)
err.args = err.args + ("hello",)
raise
except ValueError as e:
print(" error was "+ str(type(e))+str(e.args))
Edit2:
Depending on what the purpose is, you can also opt for adding the extra information under your own variable name. For both python2 and python3:
try:
try:
raise ValueError
except ValueError as err:
err.extra_info = "hello"
raise
except ValueError as e:
print(" error was "+ str(type(e))+str(e))
if 'extra_info' in dir(e):
print e.extra_info
It seems all the answers are adding info to e.args[0], thereby altering the existing error message. Is there a downside to extending the args tuple instead? I think the possible upside is, you can leave the original error message alone for cases where parsing that string is needed; and you could add multiple elements to the tuple if your custom error handling produced several messages or error codes, for cases where the traceback would be parsed programmatically (like via a system monitoring tool).
## Approach #1, if the exception may not be derived from Exception and well-behaved:
def to_int(x):
try:
return int(x)
except Exception as e:
e.args = (e.args if e.args else tuple()) + ('Custom message',)
raise
>>> to_int('12')
12
>>> to_int('12 monkeys')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 3, in to_int
ValueError: ("invalid literal for int() with base 10: '12 monkeys'", 'Custom message')
or
## Approach #2, if the exception is always derived from Exception and well-behaved:
def to_int(x):
try:
return int(x)
except Exception as e:
e.args += ('Custom message',)
raise
>>> to_int('12')
12
>>> to_int('12 monkeys')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "<stdin>", line 3, in to_int
ValueError: ("invalid literal for int() with base 10: '12 monkeys'", 'Custom message')
Can you see a downside to this approach?
This only works with Python 3. You can modify the exception's original arguments and add your own arguments.
An exception remembers the args it was created with. I presume this is so that you can modify the exception.
In the function reraise we prepend the exception's original arguments with any new arguments that we want (like a message). Finally we re-raise the exception while preserving the trace-back history.
def reraise(e, *args):
'''re-raise an exception with extra arguments
:param e: The exception to reraise
:param args: Extra args to add to the exception
'''
# e.args is a tuple of arguments that the exception with instantiated with.
#
e.args = args + e.args
# Recreate the exception and preserve the traceback info so that we can see
# where this exception originated.
#
raise e.with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
def bad():
raise ValueError('bad')
def very():
try:
bad()
except Exception as e:
reraise(e, 'very')
def very_very():
try:
very()
except Exception as e:
reraise(e, 'very')
very_very()
output
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 35, in <module>
very_very()
File "main.py", line 30, in very_very
reraise(e, 'very')
File "main.py", line 15, in reraise
raise e.with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
File "main.py", line 28, in very_very
very()
File "main.py", line 24, in very
reraise(e, 'very')
File "main.py", line 15, in reraise
raise e.with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
File "main.py", line 22, in very
bad()
File "main.py", line 18, in bad
raise ValueError('bad')
ValueError: ('very', 'very', 'bad')
try:
try:
int('a')
except ValueError as e:
raise ValueError('There is a problem: {0}'.format(e))
except ValueError as err:
print err
prints:
There is a problem: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'a'
This code template should allow you to raise an exception with a custom message.
try:
raise ValueError
except ValueError as err:
raise type(err)("my message")
This is the function I use to modify the exception message in Python 2.7 and 3.x while preserving the original traceback. It requires six
def reraise_modify(caught_exc, append_msg, prepend=False):
"""Append message to exception while preserving attributes.
Preserves exception class, and exception traceback.
Note:
This function needs to be called inside an except because
`sys.exc_info()` requires the exception context.
Args:
caught_exc(Exception): The caught exception object
append_msg(str): The message to append to the caught exception
prepend(bool): If True prepend the message to args instead of appending
Returns:
None
Side Effects:
Re-raises the exception with the preserved data / trace but
modified message
"""
ExceptClass = type(caught_exc)
# Keep old traceback
traceback = sys.exc_info()[2]
if not caught_exc.args:
# If no args, create our own tuple
arg_list = [append_msg]
else:
# Take the last arg
# If it is a string
# append your message.
# Otherwise append it to the
# arg list(Not as pretty)
arg_list = list(caught_exc.args[:-1])
last_arg = caught_exc.args[-1]
if isinstance(last_arg, str):
if prepend:
arg_list.append(append_msg + last_arg)
else:
arg_list.append(last_arg + append_msg)
else:
arg_list += [last_arg, append_msg]
caught_exc.args = tuple(arg_list)
six.reraise(ExceptClass,
caught_exc,
traceback)
Either raise the new exception with your error message using
raise Exception('your error message')
or
raise ValueError('your error message')
within the place where you want to raise it OR attach (replace) error message into current exception using 'from' (Python 3.x supported only):
except ValueError as e:
raise ValueError('your message') from e
Try below:
try:
raise ValueError("Original message. ")
except Exception as err:
message = 'My custom error message. '
# Change the order below to "(message + str(err),)" if custom message is needed first.
err.args = (str(err) + message,)
raise
Output:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ValueError Traceback (most recent call last)
1 try:
----> 2 raise ValueError("Original message")
3 except Exception as err:
4 message = 'My custom error message.'
5 err.args = (str(err) + ". " + message,)
ValueError: Original message. My custom error message.
The current answer did not work good for me, if the exception is not re-caught the appended message is not shown.
But doing like below both keeps the trace and shows the appended message regardless if the exception is re-caught or not.
try:
raise ValueError("Original message")
except ValueError as err:
t, v, tb = sys.exc_info()
raise t, ValueError(err.message + " Appended Info"), tb
( I used Python 2.7, have not tried it in Python 3 )
Python 3 built-in exceptions have the strerror field:
except ValueError as err:
err.strerror = "New error message"
raise err
None of the above solutions did exactly what I wanted, which was to add some information to the first part of the error message i.e. I wanted my users to see my custom message first.
This worked for me:
exception_raised = False
try:
do_something_that_might_raise_an_exception()
except ValueError as e:
message = str(e)
exception_raised = True
if exception_raised:
message_to_prepend = "Custom text"
raise ValueError(message_to_prepend + message)
Python 3.11+
PEP 678 – Enriching Exceptions with Notes was accepted and landed in Python 3.11. New APIs allow users to attach custom message(s) to existing errors. This is useful for adding additional context when an error is encountered.
Using the add_note method is suitable for answering the original question:
try:
int("eleven")
except ValueError as e:
errmsg = "My custom error message."
e.add_note(errmsg)
raise
It would render like this:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/tmp/example.py", line 2, in <module>
int("eleven")
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'eleven'
My custom error message.
Python < 3.11
Modifying the args attribute, which is used by BaseException.__str__ to render an exception, is the only way. You could either extend the args:
try:
int("eleven")
except ValueError as e:
errmsg = "My custom error message."
e.args += (errmsg,)
raise e
Which will render as:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/tmp/example.py", line 2, in <module>
int("eleven")
ValueError: ("invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'eleven'", 'My custom error message.')
Or you could replace the args[0], which is a little more complicated but produces a cleaner result.
try:
int("eleven")
except ValueError as e:
errmsg = "My custom error message."
args = e.args
if not args:
arg0 = errmsg
else:
arg0 = f"{args[0]}\n{errmsg}"
e.args = (arg0,) + args[1:]
raise
This will render the same way as the Python 3.11+ exception __notes__ do:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/tmp/example.py", line 2, in <module>
int("eleven")
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'eleven'
My custom error message.
I tried this compact version of #RobinL, and worked as well:
try:
do_something_that_might_raise_an_exception()
except ValueError as e:
raise ValueError(f'Custom text {e}')
Raising same error, with prepending custom text message in front.
(edit - sorry, actually same as https://stackoverflow.com/a/65494175/15229310 , why there is like 10 (upvoted) 'solutions' that simply don't answer question as posted?)
try:
<code causing exception>
except Exception as e:
e.args = (f"My custom text. Original Exception text: {'-'.join(e.args)}",)
raise
Many of proposed solutions above re-raising an exception again, which is considered as a bad practice. Something simple like this will do the job
try:
import settings
except ModuleNotFoundError:
print("Something meaningfull\n")
raise
So You'll print the error message first, and then raise the stack trace, or you can simply exit by sys.exit(1) and not show the error message at all.
if you want to custom the error type, a simple thing you can do is to define an error class based on ValueError.
I'm trying to catch an exception in a thread and re-raise it in the main thread:
import threading
import sys
class FailingThread(threading.Thread):
def run(self):
try:
raise ValueError('x')
except ValueError:
self.exc_info = sys.exc_info()
failingThread = FailingThread()
failingThread.start()
failingThread.join()
print failingThread.exc_info
raise failingThread.exc_info[1]
This basically works and yields the following output:
(<type 'exceptions.ValueError'>, ValueError('x',), <traceback object at 0x1004cc320>)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 16, in <module>
raise failingThread.exc_info[1]
However, the source of the exception points to line 16, where the re-raise occurred. The original exception comes from line 7. How do I have to modify the main thread so that the output reads:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 7, in <module>
In Python 2 you need to use all three arguments to raise:
raise failingThread.exc_info[0], failingThread.exc_info[1], failingThread.exc_info[2]
passing the traceback object in as the third argument preserves the stack.
From help('raise'):
If a third object is present and not None, it must be a traceback
object (see section The standard type hierarchy), and it is
substituted instead of the current location as the place where the
exception occurred. If the third object is present and not a
traceback object or None, a TypeError exception is raised. The
three-expression form of raise is useful to re-raise an exception
transparently in an except clause, but raise with no expressions
should be preferred if the exception to be re-raised was the most
recently active exception in the current scope.
In this particular case you cannot use the no expression version.
For Python 3 (as per the comments):
raise failingThread.exc_info[1].with_traceback(failingThread.exc_info[2])
or you can simply chain the exceptions using raise ... from ... but that raises a chained exception with the original context attached in the cause attribute and that may or may not be what you want.
This code snippet works in both python 2 & 3:
1 try:
----> 2 raise KeyError('Default key error message')
3 except KeyError as e:
4 e.args = ('Custom message when get re-raised',) #The comma is not a typo, it's there to indicate that we're replacing the tuple that e.args pointing to with another tuple that contain the custom message.
5 raise