Python Code Auditing Tool

[Peter Hansen]

Roy Smith wrote:
> Skip Montanaro wrote:
>>    246 ValueError
>>    227 aetools.Error
>>    216 Error
>>    124 TypeError
>>    101 error
>>     75 RuntimeError
>>     53 IOError
>>     36 NotImplementedError
>>     36 ImportError
>>     36 EOFError
>>     31 SyntaxError
>>     23 KeyError
>>     23 AttributeError
>>     22 DistutilsPlatformError
>>     21 UnicodeError
> 
> It's kind of interesting (scarry?) that in roughly 20% of the cases
> nothing more specific than Error is raised.

(In case someone reading doesn't know) there isn't actually
an "Error" in the standard set of exceptions.  It seems
likely that pretty much all of those uses are actually
module-specific Errors, and as such they are probably much
more specific than the unadorned name might imply.

Also, when one is trying to pick an appropriate exception
to raise, it is often the case that none of the standard
exceptions seems appropriate.  In those cases (although I
personally would prefer a different name than "Error")
there's often no good alternative to making your own
unique module-specific Exception subclass.

-Peter