Catch multiple exceptions in one line (except block)

inspectorG4dget picture inspectorG4dget · Jun 24, 2011 · Viewed 915.8k times · Source

I know that I can do:

try:
    # do something that may fail
except:
    # do this if ANYTHING goes wrong

I can also do this:

try:
    # do something that may fail
except IDontLikeYouException:
    # say please
except YouAreTooShortException:
    # stand on a ladder

But if I want to do the same thing inside two different exceptions, the best I can think of right now is to do this:

try:
    # do something that may fail
except IDontLikeYouException:
    # say please
except YouAreBeingMeanException:
    # say please

Is there any way that I can do something like this (since the action to take in both exceptions is to say please):

try:
    # do something that may fail
except IDontLikeYouException, YouAreBeingMeanException:
    # say please

Now this really won't work, as it matches the syntax for:

try:
    # do something that may fail
except Exception, e:
    # say please

So, my effort to catch the two distinct exceptions doesn't exactly come through.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer

mechanical_meat picture mechanical_meat · Jun 24, 2011

From Python Documentation:

An except clause may name multiple exceptions as a parenthesized tuple, for example

except (IDontLikeYouException, YouAreBeingMeanException) as e:
    pass

Or, for Python 2 only:

except (IDontLikeYouException, YouAreBeingMeanException), e:
    pass

Separating the exception from the variable with a comma will still work in Python 2.6 and 2.7, but is now deprecated and does not work in Python 3; now you should be using as.