/flake8-blind-except

A flake8 extension that checks for blind, catch-all except statements

Primary LanguagePythonMIT LicenseMIT

flake8-blind-except

A flake8 extension that checks for blind, catch-all except: statements.

Using except without explicitly specifying which exceptions to catch is generally considered bad practice, since it catches system signals like SIGINT. You probably want to handle system interrupts differently than exceptions occuring in your code.

It's also usually better style to have many small try-except blocks catching specific exceptions instead of a giant try: block with a catch-all except: at the bottom. It's also nicer to your fellow programmers to be a bit more specific about what exceptions they can expect in specific parts of the code, and what the proper course of action is when they occur.

An example of code that will fail this check is:

try:
    something_scary()
except:
    everybody_panic()

However, the following code is valid:

try:
    something_terrifying()
except TerrifyingException:
    dont_panic()

Installation

If you don't already have it, install flake8:

$ pip install flake8

Then, install the extension:

$ pip install flake8-blind-except

Usage

Run the following to verify that the plugin has been installed correctly:

$ flake8 --version
2.0 (pep8: 1.4.6, flake8-blind-except: 0.1.0, pyflakes: 0.7.3)

Now, when you run flake8, the plugin will automatically be used.

When a blind except is found, flake8 will output:

B901 blind except: statement

Contributing

I'm not working on Python these days, so probably won't be making updates anytime soon. PRs are welcome though!

Changes

0.1.1 - 2016-06-27

  • pep8 was renamed to pycodestyle in its 2.0 release. Compatibility update for this change

0.1.0 - 2014-02-07

  • Initial release

Notes

I've tested this package with flake8 2.6.2 and Python 2.7.3. It is untested (but likely compatible) with other software versions.