return values for exceptions

[N. Thomas]

I notice that user defined Python exceptions always return a value of 1 to
the shell. I'd like to return different values in my program, depending on
the exception, is there any way to do this?

I suppose that I could trap the exception, and then return a value based on
that, but I'm not too sure if that is the right way to go about doing it.

thanks,
thomas