The Quick Python Book, Third Edition

Chapter 14. Exceptions

This chapter covers

• Understanding exceptions
• Handling exceptions in Python
• Using the with keyword

This chapter discusses exceptions, which are language features specifically aimed at handling unusual circumstances during the execution of a program. The most common use for exceptions is to handle errors that arise during the execution of a program, but they can also be used effectively for many other purposes. Python provides a comprehensive set of exceptions, and new ones can be defined by users for their own purposes.

The concept of exceptions as an error-handling mechanism has been around for some time. C and Perl, the most commonly used systems and scripting languages, don’t provide any exception capabilities, ...