How to Print an Exception in Python

How do I print an exception in Python?

For Python 2.6 and later and Python 3.x:

except Exception as e: print(e)

For Python 2.5 and earlier, use:

except Exception,e: print str(e)

How to print an exception in Python 3?

I'm guessing that you need to assign the Exception to a variable. As shown in the Python 3 tutorial:

def fails():
    x = 1 / 0

try:
    fails()
except Exception as ex:
    print(ex)

To give a brief explanation, as is a pseudo-assignment keyword used in certain compound statements to assign or alias the preceding statement to a variable.

In this case, as assigns the caught exception to a variable allowing for information about the exception to stored and used later, instead of needing to be dealt with immediately.

(This is discussed in detail in the Python 3 Language Reference: The try Statement.)

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There are other compound statements that use as. The first is the with statement:

@contextmanager
def opening(filename):
    f = open(filename)
    try:
        yield f
    finally:
        f.close()

with opening(filename) as f:
    # ...read data from f...

Here, with statements are used to wrap the execution of a block with methods defined by context managers. This functions like an extended try...except...finally statement in a neat generator package, and the as statement assigns the generator-produced result from the context manager to a variable for extended use.

(This is discussed in detail in the Python 3 Language Reference: The with Statement.)

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As of Python 3.10, match statements also use as:

from random import randint

match randint(0, 2):
    case 0|1 as low:
        print(f"{low} is a low number")
    case _:
        print("not a low number")

match statements take an expression (in this case, randint(0, 2)) and compare its value to each case branch one at a time until one of them succeeds, at which point it executes that branch's block. In a case branch, as can be used to assign the value of the branch to a variable if that branch succeeds. If it doesn't succeed, it is not bound.

(The match statement is covered by the tutorial and discussed in detail in the Python 3 Language Reference: match Statements.)

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Finally, as can be used when importing modules, to alias a module to a different (usually shorter) name:

import foo.bar.baz as fbb

This is discussed in detail in the Python 3 Language Reference: The import Statement.

How to print an exception?

Use traceback module:

try:
    action()
except:
    import traceback
    traceback.print_exc()

How to catch and print the full exception traceback without halting/exiting the program?

Some other answer have already pointed out the traceback module.

Please notice that with print_exc, in some corner cases, you will not obtain what you would expect. In Python 2.x:

import traceback

try:
    raise TypeError("Oups!")
except Exception, err:
    try:
        raise TypeError("Again !?!")
    except:
        pass

    traceback.print_exc()

...will display the traceback of the last exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "e.py", line 7, in <module>
    raise TypeError("Again !?!")
TypeError: Again !?!

If you really need to access the original traceback one solution is to cache the exception infos as returned from exc_info in a local variable and display it using print_exception:

import traceback
import sys

try:
    raise TypeError("Oups!")
except Exception, err:
    try:
        exc_info = sys.exc_info()

        # do you usefull stuff here
        # (potentially raising an exception)
        try:
            raise TypeError("Again !?!")
        except:
            pass
        # end of useful stuff

    finally:
        # Display the *original* exception
        traceback.print_exception(*exc_info)
        del exc_info

Producing:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "t.py", line 6, in <module>
    raise TypeError("Oups!")
TypeError: Oups!

Few pitfalls with this though:

• From the doc of sys_info:

  Assigning the traceback return value to a local variable in a function that is handling an exception will cause a circular reference. This will prevent anything referenced by a local variable in the same function or by the traceback from being garbage collected. [...] If you do need the traceback, make sure to delete it after use (best done with a try ... finally statement)

• but, from the same doc:

  Beginning with Python 2.2, such cycles are automatically reclaimed when garbage collection is enabled and they become unreachable, but it remains more efficient to avoid creating cycles.

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On the other hand, by allowing you to access the traceback associated with an exception, Python 3 produce a less surprising result:

import traceback

try:
    raise TypeError("Oups!")
except Exception as err:
    try:
        raise TypeError("Again !?!")
    except:
        pass

    traceback.print_tb(err.__traceback__)

... will display:

  File "e3.py", line 4, in <module>
    raise TypeError("Oups!")

Line number in Python exception

import traceback

try:
    print("a" + 1)
except Exception as e:
    print("There was an error: " + e.args[0] + ". The line where the code failed was " + str(traceback.extract_stack()[-1][1]))

How to get exception message in Python properly

If you look at the documentation for the built-in errors, you'll see that most Exception classes assign their first argument as a message attribute. Not all of them do though.

Notably,EnvironmentError (with subclasses IOError and OSError) has a first argument of errno, second of strerror. There is no message... strerror is roughly analogous to what would normally be a message.

More generally, subclasses of Exception can do whatever they want. They may or may not have a message attribute. Future built-in Exceptions may not have a message attribute. Any Exception subclass imported from third-party libraries or user code may not have a message attribute.

I think the proper way of handling this is to identify the specific Exception subclasses you want to catch, and then catch only those instead of everything with an except Exception, then utilize whatever attributes that specific subclass defines however you want.

If you must print something, I think that printing the caught Exception itself is most likely to do what you want, whether it has a message attribute or not.

You could also check for the message attribute if you wanted, like this, but I wouldn't really suggest it as it just seems messy:

try:
    pass
except Exception as e:
    # Just print(e) is cleaner and more likely what you want,
    # but if you insist on printing message specifically whenever possible...
    if hasattr(e, 'message'):
        print(e.message)
    else:
        print(e)

How to print the exception string in class for Python

To get the full path of an exception, use the inspect.getmodule method to get the package name and use type(..).__name __ to get the class name.

except WebDriverException as ex: 
    print (type(ex).__name__)

For the full name, try

import inspect
.....
print(inspect.getmodule(ex).__name__, type(ex).__name__, sep='.')

To keep it simple, you can just parse the string you already have

print(str(sys.exc_info()[0])[8:-2]) # selenium.common.exceptions.SessionNotCreatedException

How to print every error using try except in python

As the IndexError occurs, it goes to the except, so the 4/0 is not executed, the ZeroDivisionError doesn't occur, to get both executed, use 2 different try-except

try:
    a = [1, 2]
    print(a[3])
except IndexError as e:
    print(e)

try:
    4 / 0
except ZeroDivisionError as e:
    print(e)

Giving

list index out of range
division by zero

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