Python Custom Exceptions

In the previous tutorial, we learned about different built-in exceptions in Python and why it is important to handle exceptions.

However, sometimes we may need to create our own custom exceptions that serve our purpose.

Defining Custom Exceptions

In Python, we can define custom exceptions by creating a new class that is derived from the built-in Exception class.

Here's the syntax to define custom exceptions,

class CustomError(Exception):
    ...
    pass

try:
   ...

except CustomError:
    ...

Here, CustomError is a user-defined error which inherits from the Exception class.

Example: Python User-Defined Exception

# define Python user-defined exceptions
class InvalidAgeException(Exception):
    "Raised when the input value is less than 18"
    pass

# you need to guess this number
number = 18

try:
    input_num = int(input("Enter a number: "))
    if input_num < number:
        raise InvalidAgeException
    else:
        print("Eligible to Vote")
        
except InvalidAgeException:
    print("Exception occurred: Invalid Age")

Output

If the user input input_num is greater than 18,

Enter a number: 45
Eligible to Vote

If the user input input_num is smaller than 18,

Enter a number: 14
Exception occurred: Invalid Age

In the above example, we have defined the custom exception InvalidAgeException by creating a new class that is derived from the built-in Exception class.

Here, when input_num is smaller than 18, this code generates an exception.

When an exception occurs, the rest of the code inside the try block is skipped.

The except block catches the user-defined InvalidAgeException exception and statements inside the except block are executed.

Customizing Exception Classes

We can further customize this class to accept other arguments as per our needs.

To learn about customizing the Exception classes, you need to have the basic knowledge of Object-Oriented programming.

Visit Python Object Oriented Programming to learn about Object-Oriented programming in Python.

Let's see an example,

class SalaryNotInRangeError(Exception):
    """Exception raised for errors in the input salary.

    Attributes:
        salary -- input salary which caused the error
        message -- explanation of the error
    """

    def __init__(self, salary, message="Salary is not in (5000, 15000) range"):
        self.salary = salary
        self.message = message
        super().__init__(self.message)


salary = int(input("Enter salary amount: "))
if not 5000 < salary < 15000:
    raise SalaryNotInRangeError(salary)

Output

Enter salary amount: 2000
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 17, in <module>
    raise SalaryNotInRangeError(salary)
__main__.SalaryNotInRangeError: Salary is not in (5000, 15000) range

Here, we have overridden the constructor of the Exception class to accept our own custom arguments salary and message.

Then, the constructor of the parent Exception class is called manually with the self.message argument using super().

The custom self.salary attribute is defined to be used later.

The inherited __str__ method of the Exception class is then used to display the corresponding message when SalaryNotInRangeError is raised.

Also Read:

• Python Exception Handling