How do you catch this exception?

Question

This code is in django/db/models/fields.py It creates/defines an exception?

class ReverseSingleRelatedObjectDescriptor(six.with_metaclass(RenameRelatedObjectDescriptorMethods)):
    # This class provides the functionality that makes the related-object
    # managers available as attributes on a model class, for fields that have
    # a single "remote" value, on the class that defines the related field.
    # In the example "choice.poll", the poll attribute is a
    # ReverseSingleRelatedObjectDescriptor instance.
    def __init__(self, field_with_rel):
        self.field = field_with_rel
        self.cache_name = self.field.get_cache_name()

    @cached_property
    def RelatedObjectDoesNotExist(self):
        # The exception can't be created at initialization time since the
        # related model might not be resolved yet; `rel.to` might still be
        # a string model reference.
        return type(
            str('RelatedObjectDoesNotExist'),
            (self.field.rel.to.DoesNotExist, AttributeError),
            {}
        )

This is in django/db/models/fields/related.py it raises the said exception above:

def __get__(self, instance, instance_type=None):
    if instance is None:
        return self
    try:
        rel_obj = getattr(instance, self.cache_name)
    except AttributeError:
        val = self.field.get_local_related_value(instance)
        if None in val:
            rel_obj = None
        else:
            params = dict(
                (rh_field.attname, getattr(instance, lh_field.attname))
                for lh_field, rh_field in self.field.related_fields)
            qs = self.get_queryset(instance=instance)
            extra_filter = self.field.get_extra_descriptor_filter(instance)
            if isinstance(extra_filter, dict):
                params.update(extra_filter)
                qs = qs.filter(**params)
            else:
                qs = qs.filter(extra_filter, **params)
            # Assuming the database enforces foreign keys, this won't fail.
            rel_obj = qs.get()
            if not self.field.rel.multiple:
                setattr(rel_obj, self.field.related.get_cache_name(), instance)
        setattr(instance, self.cache_name, rel_obj)
    if rel_obj is None and not self.field.null:
        raise self.RelatedObjectDoesNotExist(
            "%s has no %s." % (self.field.model.__name__, self.field.name)
        )
    else:
        return rel_obj

The problem is that this code:

    try:
        val = getattr(obj, attr_name)
    except related.ReverseSingleRelatedObjectDescriptor.RelatedObjectDoesNotExist:
        val = None  # Does not catch the thrown exception
    except Exception as foo:
        print type(foo)  # Catches here, not above

won't catch that exception

>>>print type(foo)
<class 'django.db.models.fields.related.RelatedObjectDoesNotExist'>
>>>isinstance(foo, related.FieldDoesNotExist)
False

and

except related.RelatedObjectDoesNotExist:

Raises an AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'RelatedObjectDoesNotExist'

>>>isinstance(foo, related.ReverseSingleRelatedObjectDescriptor.RelatedObjectDoesNotExist)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <fragment>
TypeError: isinstance() arg 2 must be a class, type, or tuple of classes and types

which is probably why.

Answer 1

If your related model is called Foo you can just do:

except Foo.DoesNotExist:

Django is amazing when its not terrifying. RelatedObjectDoesNotExist is a property that returns a type that is figured out dynamically at runtime. That type uses self.field.rel.to.DoesNotExist as a base class. According to Django documentation:

ObjectDoesNotExist and DoesNotExist

exception DoesNotExist

The DoesNotExist exception is raised when an object is not found for the given parameters of a query. Django provides a DoesNotExist exception as an attribute of each model class to identify the class of object that could not be found and to allow you to catch a particular model class with try/except.

This is the magic that makes that happen. Once the model has been built up, self.field.rel.to.DoesNotExist is the does-not-exist exception for that model.