4.3. Error Handling

Introduction

I've heard about error handling in programming, but what's it all about?

Error handling is a way to handle unexpected situations, like errors, while your program is running.

Awesome! Show me how it's done!

Sure! We'll use Python for our examples in this article.

Step 1: Writing a Function that May Raise an Error

Let's start with a function that could raise an error!

Okay, here's a function that divides two numbers. Division by zero is an error in Python.

def divide(a, b):
    return a / b

Step 2: Using Try and Except Blocks for Error Handling

So, how do we handle errors in our function?

We can use try and except blocks to handle errors. When an error occurs in the try block, the program jumps to the matching except block.

def safe_divide(a, b):
    try:
        return a / b
    except ZeroDivisionError:
        print("Oops! You can't divide by zero.")
        return None

Step 3: Testing the Error Handling Function

How do we test our error handling function?

We can call the function with different inputs to see how it behaves when an error occurs.

result1 = safe_divide(10, 2)
result2 = safe_divide(10, 0)

print("Result 1:", result1)
print("Result 2:", result2)

Output:

Result 1: 5.0
Oops! You can't divide by zero.
Result 2: None

Conclusion

Congratulations! You’ve learned the basics of error handling in Python. Using try and except blocks allows your program to handle unexpected situations gracefully. Keep exploring intermediate programming concepts and continue learning! 🚀