Get reference to the current exception

Question

$ ./runtests.py -v tests/managers/test_customer.py:CustomerManagerTest.test_register_without_subscription --ipdb

...

test_register_without_subscription (tests.managers         


        

Answer 1

This has frustrated me too for a while. I eventually found the answer here, along with a good detailed explanation.

The short answer is, use the ! magic prefix (!sys.exc_info()):

In [4]: 1/0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZeroDivisionError                         Traceback (most recent call last)
...
ipdb> !sys.exc_info()
(<type 'exceptions.AttributeError'>, AttributeError("'exceptions.ZeroDivisionError' object has no attribute '_render_traceback_'",), <traceback object at 0x101c55fc8>)

This basically tells the debugger: "guessing wouldn't be necessary. it is python code I'm typing", thus preventing it from trying to guess what you mean by "sys", a process during which some internal exception is raised, overwriting sys.exc_info(), which used to hold your original exception.