Adding information to an exception?

Question

I want to achieve something like this:

def foo():
   try:
       raise IOError(\'Stuff \')
   except:
       raise

def bar(arg1):
    try:
       foo()
             


        

Answer 1

In case you came here searching for a solution for Python 3 the manual says:

When raising a new exception (rather than using a bare raise to re-raise the exception currently being handled), the implicit exception context can be supplemented with an explicit cause by using from with raise:

raise new_exc from original_exc

---

Example:

try:
    return [permission() for permission in self.permission_classes]
except TypeError as e:
    raise TypeError("Make sure your view's 'permission_classes' are iterable. "
                    "If you use '()' to generate a set with a single element "
                    "make sure that there is a comma behind the one (element,).") from e

Which looks like this in the end:

2017-09-06 16:50:14,797 [ERROR] django.request: Internal Server Error: /v1/sendEmail/
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/rest_framework/views.py", line 275, in get_permissions
    return [permission() for permission in self.permission_classes]
TypeError: 'type' object is not iterable 

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
    # Traceback removed...
TypeError: Make sure your view's Permission_classes are iterable. If 
     you use parens () to generate a set with a single element make 
     sure that there is a (comma,) behind the one element.

Turning a totally nondescript TypeError into a nice message with hints towards a solution without messing up the original Exception.

Answer 2

I don't like all the given answers so far. They are still too verbose imho. In either code and message output.

All i want to have is the stacktrace pointing to the source exception, no exception stuff in between, so no creation of new exceptions, just re-raising the original with all the relevant stack frame states in it, that led there.

Steve Howard gave a nice answer which i want to extend, no, reduce ... to python 3 only.

except Exception as e:
    e.args = ("Some failure state", *e.args)
    raise

The only new thing is the parameter expansion/unpacking which makes it small and easy enough for me to use.

Try it:

foo = None

try:
    try:
        state = "bar"
        foo.append(state)

    except Exception as e:
        e.args = ("Appending '"+state+"' failed", *e.args)
        raise

    print(foo[0]) # would raise too

except Exception as e:
    e.args = ("print(foo) failed: " + str(foo), *e.args)
    raise

This will give you:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 6, in <module>
    foo.append(state)
AttributeError: ('print(foo) failed: None', "Appending 'bar' failed", "'NoneType' object has no attribute 'append'")

A simple pretty-print could be something like

print("\n".join( "-"*i+" "+j for i,j in enumerate(e.args)))

Answer 3

I will provide a snippet of code that I use often whenever I want to add extra info to an exception. I works both in Python 2.7 and 3.6.

import sys
import traceback

try:
    a = 1
    b = 1j

    # The line below raises an exception because
    # we cannot compare int to complex.
    m = max(a, b)  

except Exception as ex:
    # I create my  informational message for debugging:
    msg = "a=%r, b=%r" % (a, b)

    # Gather the information from the original exception:
    exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback = sys.exc_info()

    # Format the original exception for a nice printout:
    traceback_string = ''.join(traceback.format_exception(
        exc_type, exc_value, exc_traceback))

    # Re-raise a new exception of the same class as the original one, 
    # using my custom message and the original traceback:
    raise type(ex)("%s\n\nORIGINAL TRACEBACK:\n\n%s\n" % (msg, traceback_string))

The code above results in the following output:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-6-09b74752c60d> in <module>()
     14     raise type(ex)(
     15         "%s\n\nORIGINAL TRACEBACK:\n\n%s\n" %
---> 16         (msg, traceback_string))

TypeError: a=1, b=1j

ORIGINAL TRACEBACK:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<ipython-input-6-09b74752c60d>", line 7, in <module>
    m = max(a, b)  # Cannot compare int to complex
TypeError: no ordering relation is defined for complex numbers

I know this deviates a little from the example provided in the question, but nevertheless I hope someone finds it useful.