How to Use Python to Catch Multiple Exceptions

Python is a programming language that powers everything from garage-based startup apps to data science tools used by companies like Google and Netflix. Its relative ease of use makes it a great choice for developers new to coding. One of the most important features of Python is its ability to handle exceptions. This allows programmers to handle errors in a flexible manner.

Tuple of Exception Types

The try... except statement is one of the basic tools that Python gives you to handle errors and exceptional situations. This statement allows you to write code that will run until an exception is raised and then execute only the code inside an except block that handles that specific type of exception.

Exceptions often have associated values, known as arguments. These are passed to the exception class constructor at the time of their instantiation. You can dynamically access these arguments using the.args attribute on the exception object.

In the example above, if you try to concatenate a string and an int together, Python will raise a ZeroDivisionError exception. You can catch this exception and the other exceptions that are listed in the except block by adding them to a parenthesized tuple in your except block. This allows you to catch multiple exceptions and reduce duplication in your exception handling code. You can also compliment all of your specific except blocks with a general except block that will serve to catch any exceptions that went undetected by the other exceptions in the list.

List of Exception Types

There are a few different types of exceptions that python catch multiple exceptions can catch. Most of them are pre-defined and known as built-in exceptions, such as IndexError, ZeroDivisionError, and ImportError. These exceptions can be caught using the try, except, and else blocks of a program. Each exception type has its own set of handlers that can be used to respond to it.

When an exception occurs, it will be raised and a traceback of its causes will be printed. The exception type will be included in this traceback as part of the message displayed to the user.

It is not recommended to use an empty except clause since it will catch any exception that may occur in your code. This can cause your program to have many exceptions which can be difficult to debug. Instead, you should specify a list of exceptions in an except clause or use the Exception base class to handle all system exceptions that can occur.

Single Exception Clause

Python allows you to catch exceptions so that the program doesn’t stop running as soon as an error occurs. This is a feature that helps to prevent the program from halting abruptly, which can be frustrating for the end user and developer alike. Exceptions can be raised by many different things, such as syntax errors or bugs in the code. They are referred to as exceptions because they change the normal flow of program execution.

There are multiple ways to catch an exception in Python, but the most common is to use a try block with an except clause. In this way, you can catch different types of exceptions at the same time. For example, you can specify the exceptions ZeroDivisionError, IndexOutOfRange, and TypeError in the except clause. The except block will only be executed for the specific exceptions that you name. It will not handle any exceptions that are raised inside of other except blocks.

Multiple Exception Clause

Python lets you name multiple exception types in an except clause. If an exception occurs in the try block and its type matches any of the exception types named in the except clause, the code in that exception handler is executed.

However, it is not recommended to use this form of catching multiple exceptions in your code. When an exception is handled this way, the exception traceback message may not provide the information you need to troubleshoot the problem. For example, the error message for a SyntaxError may not identify where in your code the invalid syntax was found.

Instead, you should use a try/except block to enclose your code that might raise an exception. Then when an exception is raised, the Python interpreter checks each of the except blocks in the order listed to see if they can handle it. If a catch clause does not match the exception, execution of the try block is stopped with a traceback message.