Exception Handling in Python 3

[Ben Finney]

Steve Holden <steve at holdenweb.com> writes:

> I simply felt that the traceback gives too much information in the
> case where an exception is specifically being raised to replace the
> one currently being handled.

Ideally, that description of the problem would suggest the obvious
solution: replace the class of the exception and allow the object to
continue up the exception handler stack.

But that doesn't work either::

    >>> d = {}
    >>> try:
    ...     val = d['nosuch']
    ... except KeyError as exc:
    ...     exc.__class__ = AttributeError
    ...     raise exc
    ...
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
    KeyError: 'nosuch'

    During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "<stdin>", line 4, in <module>
    TypeError: __class__ assignment: only for heap types

which means, AFAICT, that re-binding ‘__class__’ is only allowed for
objects of a type defined in the Python run-time heap, not those defined
in C code (like the built-in-exception types).

-- 
 \     “I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. |
  `\          There's a knob called ‘brightness’ but it doesn't work.” |
_o__)                                             —Eugene P. Gallagher |
Ben Finney