Python: catch either one of two exceptions

Question

I have the following piece of code. article_as_dict is a dictionary that I'm receiving from an external source:

final_dict["short_title"] = article_as_dict["short_title"]
try:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = article_as_dict["main_image"]["img"][-1]["link"]
except IndexError:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = None

I discovered recently that I also need to account for a possible KeyError, is the block below the most pythonic way to do this?

final_dict["short_title"] = article_as_dict["short_title"]
try:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = article_as_dict["main_image"]["img"][-1]["link"]
except IndexError:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = None
except KeyError:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = None

I don't want a naked except clause because it's bad practice.

`except (IndexError, KeyError):`? I'd strongly recommend reading [basic tutorials](https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/errors.html) before asking. — jonrsharpe, Aug 06 '18 at 19:33

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 06 '18 at 19:36

4

You can catch multiple types of errors in one line.

From Python Documentation:

An except clause may name multiple exceptions as a parenthesized tuple

It would be more pythonic to catch your errors like so:

except (IndexError, KeyError)...

answered Aug 06 '18 at 19:36

Daniel Ong

283
1
12

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 06 '18 at 19:38

You can catch multiple exceptions in a single line;

final_dict["short_title"] = article_as_dict["short_title"]
try:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = article_as_dict["main_image"]["img"][-1]["link"]
except (IndexError, KeyError) as e:
    final_dict["picture_url"] = None

Python: catch either one of two exceptions

2 Answers2