PEP: 409
Title: Suppressing exception context
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us>
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 26-Jan-2012
Post-History: 30-Aug-2002, 01-Feb-2012, 03-Feb-2012


Abstract
========

One of the open issues from PEP 3134 is suppressing context: currently
there is no way to do it.  This PEP proposes one.


Rationale
=========

There are two basic ways to generate exceptions:

1. Python does it (buggy code, missing resources, ending loops, etc.)

2. manually (with a raise statement)

When writing libraries, or even just custom classes, it can become
necessary to raise exceptions; moreover it can be useful, even
necessary, to change from one exception to another.  To take an
example from my dbf module::

    try:
        value = int(value)
    except Exception:
        raise DbfError(...)

Whatever the original exception was (``ValueError``, ``TypeError``, or
something else) is irrelevant.  The exception from this point on is a
``DbfError``, and the original exception is of no value.  However, if
this exception is printed, we would currently see both.


Alternatives
============
Several possibilities have been put forth:

* ``raise as NewException()``

  Reuses the ``as`` keyword; can be confusing since we are not really
  reraising the originating exception

* ``raise NewException() from None``

  Follows existing syntax of explicitly declaring the originating
  exception

* ``exc = NewException(); exc.__context__ = None; raise exc``

  Very verbose way of the previous method

* ``raise NewException.no_context(...)``

  Make context suppression a class method.

All of the above options will require changes to the core.


Proposal
========

I proprose going with the second option::

    raise NewException from None

It has the advantage of using the existing pattern of explicitly
setting the cause::

    raise KeyError() from NameError()

but because the cause is ``None`` the previous context is not
displayed by the default exception printing routines.


Implementation Discussion
=========================

Currently, ``None`` is the default for both ``__context__`` and
``__cause__``.  In order to support ``raise ... from None`` (which
would set ``__cause__`` to ``None``) we need a different default value
for ``__cause__``.  Several ideas were put forth on how to implement
this at the language level:

* Overwrite the previous exception information (side-stepping the
  issue and leaving ``__cause__`` at ``None``).

  Rejected as this can seriously hinder debugging due to `poor error
  messages`_.

* Use one of the boolean values in ``__cause__``: ``False`` would be
  the default value, and would be replaced when ``from ...`` was used
  with the explicity chained exception or ``None``.

  Rejected as this encourages the use of two different objects types
  for ``__cause__`` with one of them (boolean) not allowed to have the
  full range of possible values (``True`` would never be used).

* Create a special exception class, ``__NoException__``.

  Rejected as possibly confusing, possibly being mistakenly raised by
  users, and not being a truly unique value as ``None``, ``True``, and
  ``False`` are.

* Use ``Ellipsis`` as the default value (the ``...`` singleton).

  Accepted.  There are no other possible values; it cannot be raised
  as it is not an exception; it has the connotation of 'fill in the
  rest...' as in ``__cause__`` is not set, look in ``__context__`` for
  it.


Language Details
================

To support ``from None``, ``__context__`` will stay as it is, but
``__cause__`` will start out as ``Ellipsis`` and will change to
``None`` when the ``raise ... from None`` method is used.

============================================  ==================  =======================================
form                                          __context__         __cause__
============================================  ==================  =======================================
raise                                         ``None``            ``Ellipsis``
reraise                                       previous exception  ``Ellipsis``
reraise from ``None`` | ``ChainedException``  previous exception  ``None`` | explicitly chained exception
============================================  ==================  =======================================

The default exception printing routine will then:

* If ``__cause__`` is ``Ellipsis`` the ``__context__`` (if any) will
  be printed.

* If ``__cause__`` is ``None`` the ``__context__`` will not be
  printed.

* If ``__cause__`` is anything else, ``__cause__`` will be printed.


Patches
=======

There is a patch for CPython implementing this attached to `Issue
6210`_.


References
==========

Discussion and refinements in this `thread on python-dev`_.

.. _poor error messages:
   http://bugs.python.org/msg152294
.. _issue 6210:
   http://bugs.python.org/issue6210
.. _Thread on python-dev:
   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-January/115838.html


Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.


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