How to save traceback / sys.exc_info() values in a variable?

Question

I want to save the name of the error and the traceback details into a variable. Here's is my attempt.

import sys
try:
    try:
        print x
    except Exception, ex:
        raise NameError
except Exception, er:
    print "0", sys.exc_info()[0]
    print "1", sys.exc_info()[1]
    print "2", sys.exc_info()[2]

Output:

0 <type 'exceptions.NameError'>
1 
2 <traceback object at 0xbd5fc8>

Desired Output:

0 NameError
1
2 Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "exception.py", line 6, in <module>
    raise NameError

P.S. I know this can be done easily using the traceback module, but I want to know usage of sys.exc_info()[2] object here.

Answer 1

This is how I do it:

>>> import traceback
>>> try:
...   int('k')
... except:
...   var = traceback.format_exc()
... 
>>> print var
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'k'

You should however take a look at the traceback documentation, as you might find there more suitable methods, depending to how you want to process your variable afterwards...