[Tutor] Is there a convenient table of Python 3.4 exceptions?

[boB Stepp]

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 11:04 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> boB Stepp <robertvstepp at gmail.com> writes:
>
[...]
>
>> I have so far been unable to find a list of these class/subclass
>> names.
>
> The standard library documentation's chapter on exceptions
> <URL:https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html> shows
> <URL:https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#exception-hierarchy>.
>

As with Danny, thanks Ben. This is what I was trying to find

[...]
>
> More importantly, though, you should consider *why* you're attempting to
> catch a lot of exception classes. Will you be meaningfully handling
> every one of those situations? That's rather doubtful.
>
> Instead, you should consider which exceptional states your code can
> meaningfully handle, discover what excpetion classes are raised for
> those few situations, and catch *only* those classes.
>

In the programs I have been dabbling in at work, I am often
"surprised" by the situations my users stumble into that I did not
have sufficient imagination to consider up front. And in line with
your statements I have often wondered if I had done enough error
checking, or whether in some instances I was doing too much. Trying to
imagine what the user might do is often a difficult exercise,
especially as my programs have been becoming more lengthy and complex.
I suppose this gets easier with more knowledge and experience?

> Any other exception that gets raised isn't something you can do anything
> useful with, so it should propagate back up to higher levels, either to
> be handled or to exit with a useful error message.
>
As a user of software I have often wished that the error messages
generated were understandable and help me to avoid the condition which
triggered that message in the future.


-- 
boB