[issue21259] replace "except: pass" by "except Exception: pass"

[Terry J. Reedy]

Terry J. Reedy added the comment:

A couple of years ago, when I pushed 'except: pass', I was told in post-review that grandfathered bad code is no excuse for more bad code and that I should be explicit, including if I actually meant "except BaseException:", which in this case I did.  No other developer said otherwise.  I took the above to be the general consensus. I agree with it, one reason being that bare excepts are speed bumps when reading someone else's code.

Victor> generic change "except: pass" to "except Exception: pass"
This is not correct without case-by-case examination.

#16261 had 2 patches.  The patch for doc examples changed 3 'except:'s to 'except Exception:'  I believe these are correct, or correct enough.  They all need to *not* catch KeyboardInterrupt.  The patch for lib code never changed to Exception, but something tighter.

The patch committed for #16261 patched 7 files (down from the original proposed 11).  Even that took a couple of years to get a second review.  I think further followup patches should probably change even fewer files and be attached to new, narrowly focused issues.

Raymond, since you closed this once, and since no new patch has been submitted, I presume you do not mind if I reclose this.

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resolution:  -> duplicate
stage:  -> resolved
status: open -> closed
type:  -> enhancement

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/issue21259>
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