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From: alex23 <wuwe...@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: exception problem
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2012 17:36:21 -0700 (PDT)
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On Jun 28, 10:13=A0am, Charles Hixson <charleshi...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
> On 06/25/2012 12:48 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> > "Catch any exception" is almost certainly the wrong thing to do, almost
> > always.

> This time it was the right thing, as I suspected that *SOME* exception
> was being thrown, but had no idea what one. =A0The problem was I didn't
> know how to print the result when I caught the exception.

I think you're still missing the point. If you _didn't_ have a bare
try/except, the exception _would have been raised_ and the exception
displayed.

You _don't_ need an exception handler for exceptions to occur, they
just occur. You _only_ need a handler when you want to, y'know, handle
them.

> This has
> since been cleared up, but first I found it on Google, and then I was
> told about it on the list. =A0The documentation left me totally ... well,
> not uninformed, but confused. =A0As I said it turned out to be a method
> call on an uninitialized variable, as I found out once I figured out how
> to list the result of catching the exception. =A0Which is what I expected
> the documentation to show me how to do.

The documentation doesn't expect you to write code to block error
reporting. If you had just removed the try/except, you would have seen
the problem right away.

> What really annoys me is the way the documentation has worsened since
> python 2.5, but if you know what it is trying to tell you, then I guess
> you aren't bothered by undefined terms and lack of examples. =A0I went
> away from programming in Python for a couple of years though, and I
> guess I missed the transition, or something.

Can I suggest re-looking at the tutorial for errors & exceptions? I
really think you're making this a lot more difficult for yourself than
it needs to be.

http://docs.python.org/tutorial/errors.html