better-exchook 1.20200219.175528

nice Python exception hook replacement

A nicer drop-in-replacement for Python sys.excepthook, i.e. it prints stack traces with extended information. It will add some useful information for each frame, like printing the relevant variables (relevant = referenced in the code line). Also see Python source and comments for further details.

Features

• Multi-line Python statements in the stack trace output.

• Colored/formated output of each frame.

• Syntax highlighting for the Python source code.

• Support for DomTerm, where it folds all the details of each stack frame away by default, and thus provides a much more comprehensive overview, while still providing all the details when needed.

Installation

You can just copy over the single file better_exchook.py to your project.

Or alternatively, it is also available on PyPI and can be installed via:

pip install better_exchook

Usage

import better_exchook
better_exchook.install()  # will just do: sys.excepthook = better_exchook

Examples

Python example code:

try:
    x = {1:2, "a":"b"}
    def f():
        y = "foo"
        x, 42, sys.stdin.__class__, sys.exc_info, y, z
    f()
except Exception:
    better_exchook.better_exchook(*sys.exc_info())

Output:

EXCEPTION
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "better_exchook.py", line 478, in <module>
    line: f()
    locals:
      f = <local> <function f at 0x107f1de60>
  File "better_exchook.py", line 477, in f
    line: x, 42, sys.stdin.__class__, sys.exc_info, y, z
    locals:
      x = <global> {'a': 'b', 1: 2}
      sys = <global> <module 'sys' (built-in)>
      sys.stdin = <global> <open file '<stdin>', mode 'r' at 0x107d9f0c0>
      sys.stdin.__class__ = <global> <type 'file'>
      sys.exc_info = <global> <built-in function exc_info>
      y = <local> 'foo'
      z = <not found>
NameError: global name 'z' is not defined

Python example code:

try:
    f = lambda x: None
    f(x, y)
except Exception:
    better_exchook.better_exchook(*sys.exc_info())

Output:

EXCEPTION
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "better_exchook.py", line 484, in <module>
    line: f(x, y)
    locals:
      f = <local> <function <lambda> at 0x107f1df50>
      x = <local> {'a': 'b', 1: 2}
      y = <not found>
NameError: name 'y' is not defined

Python example code:

try:
    (lambda x: None)(__name__,
                     42)  # multiline
except Exception:
    better_exchook.better_exchook(*sys.exc_info())

Output:

EXCEPTION
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "better_exchook.py", line 490, in <module>
    line: (lambda x: None)(__name__,
                           42)  # multiline
    locals:
      x = <local> {'a': 'b', 1: 2}
      __name__ = <local> '__main__', len = 8
TypeError: <lambda>() takes exactly 1 argument (2 given)

Python example code:

# use this to overwrite the global exception handler
sys.excepthook = better_exchook.better_exchook
# and fail
finalfail(sys)

Output:

EXCEPTION
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "better_exchook.py", line 497, in <module>
    line: finalfail(sys)
    locals:
      finalfail = <not found>
      sys = <local> <module 'sys' (built-in)>
NameError: name 'finalfail' is not defined

Screenshot:

Screencast with DomTerm:

Similar projects

• https://github.com/patrys/great-justice

• Nose does something similar for assertion failures.

• IPython has something similar (this). Do this: from IPython.core import ultratb; sys.excepthook = ultratb.VerboseTB().

• Ka-Ping Yee’s “cgitb.py”, which is part of Python, see here, code here.

• See this related StackOverflow question.

– Albert Zeyer, <http://www.az2000.de>