Chapter 14. Exceptions

This chapter covers

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

This chapter discusses exceptions, which are a language feature 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, ...

Get The Quick Python Book, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.