General decorator to wrap try except in python?

Question

I\'d interacting with a lot of deeply nested json I didn\'t write, and would like to make my python script more \'forgiving\' to invalid input. I find myself writing involve

Answer 1

It's very easy to achieve using configurable decorator.

def get_decorator(errors=(Exception, ), default_value=''):

    def decorator(func):

        def new_func(*args, **kwargs):
            try:
                return func(*args, **kwargs)
            except errors, e:
                print "Got error! ", repr(e)
                return default_value

        return new_func

    return decorator

f = get_decorator((KeyError, NameError), default_value='default')
a = {}

@f
def example1(a):
    return a['b']

@f
def example2(a):
    return doesnt_exist()

print example1(a)
print example2(a)

Just pass to get_decorator tuples with error types which you want to silence and default value to return. Output will be

Got error!  KeyError('b',)
default
Got error!  NameError("global name 'doesnt_exist' is not defined",)
default

Edit: Thanks to martineau i changed default value of errors to tuples with basic Exception to prevents errors.