Error in try/except construction

Question

Im just sitting for 10 minutes staring at a simple piece of code, which I have copied from a guide and I can't understand why I am getting an error.

def transformation(x):
    date_format = "%d/%m/%Y"
    try:
        a = dt.date(int(x[6:10]), int(x[3:5]), int(x[0:2]))
    else:
        a = dt.datetime.strptime(x, date_format)
    finally: 
        return a
  File "<ipython-input-91-f1f6fe70d542>", line 5
    else:
       ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Maybe this is just me... Whats wrong? After adding except:

def transformation(x):
    date_format = "%d/%m/%Y"
    try:
        a = dt.date(int(x[6:10]), int(x[3:5]), int(x[0:2]))
    except pass 
    else:
        a = dt.datetime.strptime(x, date_format)
    finally: 
        return a
File "<ipython-input-93-c2285c857574>", line 5
    except pass 
              ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 02 '16 at 13:55

3

You need an except clause to use else:

The try ... except statement has an optional else clause, which, when present, must follow all except clauses [Emphasis mine]

answered Nov 02 '16 at 13:55

Moses Koledoye

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please,see edit – Nov 02 '16 at 13:58
2

You need a colon after `except`. – Moses Koledoye Nov 02 '16 at 14:00

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 02 '16 at 15:00

I just saw it from the python document page, so I'm just gonna quote what it says to you:

The try ... except statement has an optional else clause, which, when present, must follow all except clauses. It is useful for code that must be executed if the try clause does not raise an exception. For example:
 for arg in sys.argv[1:]:
        try:
            f = open(arg, 'r')
        except IOError:
            print('cannot open', arg)
        else:
            print(arg, 'has', len(f.readlines()), 'lines')
            f.close()

Error in try/except construction

2 Answers2