Question or problem about Python programming:
If I catch a KeyError, how can I tell what lookup failed?
def poijson2xml(location_node, POI_JSON):
try:
man_json = POI_JSON["FastestMan"]
woman_json = POI_JSON["FastestWoman"]
except KeyError:
# How can I tell what key ("FastestMan" or "FastestWoman") caused the error?
LogErrorMessage ("POIJSON2XML", "Can't find mandatory key in JSON")
How to solve the problem:
Solution 1:
Take the current exception (I used it as e in this case); then for a KeyError the first argument is the key that raised the exception. Therefore we can do:
except KeyError as e: # One would do it as 'KeyError, e:' in Python 2.
cause = e.args[0]
With that, you have the offending key stored in cause.
It should be noted that e.message works in Python 2 but not Python 3, so it shouldn’t be used.
Solution 2:
Not sure if you’re using any modules to assist you – if the JSON is coming in as a dict, one can use dict.get() towards a useful end.
def POIJSON2DOM (location_node, POI_JSON):
man_JSON = POI_JSON.get("FastestMan", 'No Data for fastest man')
woman_JSON = POI_JSON.get("FastestWoman", 'No Data for fastest woman')
#work with the answers as you see fit
dict.get() takes two arguments – the first being the key you want, the second being the value to return if that key does not exist.
Solution 3:
If you import the sys module you can get exception info with sys.exc_info()
like this:
def POIJSON2DOM (location_node, POI_JSON):
try:
man_JSON = POI_JSON["FastestMan"]
woman_JSON = POI_JSON["FastestWoman"]
except KeyError:
# you can inspect these variables for error information
err_type, err_value, err_traceback = sys.exc_info()
REDI.LogErrorMessage ("POIJSON2DOM", "Can't find mandatory key in JSON")
