error handling in requests python

Understanding Error Handling in Requests Python

If you are working with requests library in Python, you must have come across situations where your requests fail due to some reason or the other. In such cases, it is important to handle the errors gracefully so that your code does not break and you can troubleshoot the issue accordingly.

There are many ways to handle errors in requests Python, some of which are:

  • Using Try-Except block
  • Using Raise for Custom Exceptions
  • Using Response.raise_for_status()

Using Try-Except Block

The most common way to handle errors in requests Python is by using a try-except block. This way, you can catch the exception and handle it accordingly. Here is an example:


import requests

try:
    response = requests.get("http://www.example.com")
    response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as err:
    print("Error: {}".format(err))

The above code will catch any HTTP errors that occur during the request and print the error message. You can modify the code to handle the error in any way you want.

Using Raise for Custom Exceptions

You can also raise custom exceptions for specific errors. This can be useful if you want to handle different types of errors differently. Here is an example:


import requests

class MyException(Exception):
    pass

try:
    response = requests.get("http://www.example.com")
    response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as err:
    raise MyException("Error: {}".format(err))

In the above example, we are raising a custom exception called MyException if an HTTP error occurs during the request.

Using Response.raise_for_status()

The Response.raise_for_status() method can be used to raise an HTTPError if the status code of the response is not ok. Here is an example:


import requests

response = requests.get("http://www.example.com")
response.raise_for_status()

The above code will raise an HTTPError if the status code of the response is not ok.