How to get python default exception message in exception handling

Question

When I handle an exception in python

try:
    a = dict()
    a[1]
except Exception as e:
    print str(e)

It prints

I expect it to print

KeyError: 1

Is there a way to retrieve the default error message ?

This code doesn't return anything, only prints, and second, no exception is raised... — Nir Alfasi
– Nir Alfasi, Commented Nov 22, 2014 at 4:16
Best to not catch generic Exceptions and expect good things to happen. The point of exceptions is that they give you a specific issue to deal with - catching the base case means you don't know what you're handling, so how can you handle it correctly? — Jon Kiparsky
– Jon Kiparsky, Commented Nov 22, 2014 at 4:18
Most of the times, I can't catch all errors and exceptions, so if I want to exit the program gracefully I need to catch generic Exceptions — user3685952
– user3685952, Commented Nov 22, 2014 at 7:19

gcarvelli · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-22 04:45:33Z

3

Instead of this:

print str(e)

do this:

print(type(e).__name__ + ": " + str(e))

or just this:

print(type(e).__name__, e)

answered Nov 22, 2014 at 4:45

gcarvelli

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Comments

heckman · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-20 21:22:24Z

0

If you replace str(e) with repr(e) Python 2 will produce KeyError(1,) and Python 3 will produce KeyError(1)

This doesn't quite produce your desired output, but it may be close enough?

answered Mar 20, 2019 at 21:22

heckman

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