Proper way to declare custom exceptions in modern Python?

Question

What\'s the proper way to declare custom exception classes in modern Python? My primary goal is to follow whatever standard other exception classes have, so that (for instan

Answer 1

As of Python 3.8 (2018, https://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/3.8.html), the recommended method is still:

class CustomExceptionName(Exception):
    """Exception raised when very uncommon things happen"""
    pass

Please don't forget to document, why a custom exception is neccessary!

If you need to, this is the way to go for exceptions with more data:

class CustomExceptionName(Exception):
    """Still an exception raised when uncommon things happen"""
    def __init__(self, message, payload=None):
        self.message = message
        self.payload = payload # you could add more args
    def __str__(self):
        return str(self.message) # __str__() obviously expects a string to be returned, so make sure not to send any other data types

and fetch them like:

try:
    raise CustomExceptionName("Very bad mistake.", "Forgot upgrading from Python 1")
except CustomExceptionName as error:
    print(str(error)) # Very bad mistake
    print("Detail: {}".format(error.payload)) # Detail: Forgot upgrading from Python 1

payload=None is important to make it pickle-able. Before dumping it, you have to call error.__reduce__(). Loading will work as expected.

You maybe should investigate in finding a solution using pythons return statement if you need much data to be transferred to some outer structure. This seems to be clearer/more pythonic to me. Advanced exceptions are heavily used in Java, which can sometimes be annoying, when using a framework and having to catch all possible errors.