How to catch all exceptions in Try/Catch Block Python?

Question

I am writing python code to install all the library packages required by my program in the linux environment.So the linux may contain python 2.7 or 2.6 or both so I have developed a try and except block codes that will install pip packages in linux. Try block code consists of python 2.7 version pip install and Catch block contains python 2.6 version pip install. My Problem is the peace of code is working fine, when i tried to install pandas in python 2.6 its getting me some errror. I want to catch that exception. Can you please tell me how to improve my try except blocks to catch that exception

required_libraries = ['pytz','requests','pandas']
try:
   from subprocess import check_output
   pip27_path = subprocess.check_output(['sudo','find','/','-name','pip2.7'])
   lib_installs = [subprocess.call((['sudo',pip27_path.replace('\n',''),'install', i])) for i in required_libraries]
except:
   p = subprocess.Popen(['sudo','find','/','-name','pip2.6'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE);pip26_path, err = p.communicate()
   lib_installs = [subprocess.call((['sudo',pip26_path.replace('\n',''),'install', i])) for i in required_libraries]

Solution

You can catch several exceptions using one block. Let's use Exception and ArithmeticError for exceptions.

try:
    # Do something
    print(q)

# Catch exceptions  
except (Exception, ArithmeticError) as e:
    template = "An exception of type {0} occurred. Arguments:\n{1!r}"
    message = template.format(type(e).__name__, e.args)
    print (message)

If you need to catch several exceptions and handle each one on its own then you'd write an except statement for each one.

try:
    # Do something
    print(q)

# Catch exceptions  
except Exception as e:
    print (1)

except ArithmeticError as e:
    print (2)

# Code to be executed if the try clause succeeded with no errors or no return/continue/break statement

else:
    print (3)

You can also check if the exception is of type "MyCustomException" for example using if statements.

if isinstance(e, MyCustomException):
    # Do something
    print(1)

As for your problem, I suggest splitting the code into two functions.

install(required_libraries)

def install(required_libraries, version='pip2.7'):
    # Perform installation
    try:
        from subprocess import check_output
        pip27_path = subprocess.check_output(['sudo','find','/','-name', version])
        lib_installs = [subprocess.call((['sudo',pip27_path.replace('\n',''),'install', i])) for i in required_libraries]

    except Exception as e:
        backup(required_libraries)

def backup(required_libraries, version='pip2.6'):
    try:
        p = subprocess.Popen(['sudo','find','/','-name',version]], stdout=subprocess.PIPE);pip26_path, err = p.communicate()
        lib_installs = [subprocess.call((['sudo',pip26_path.replace('\n',''),'install', i])) for i in required_libraries]

    except Exception as e:
        template = "An exception of type {0} occurred. Arguments:\n{1!r}"
        message = template.format(type(e).__name__, e.args)
        print (message)

        #Handle exception

Note: I didn't test this, I'm no expert as well so I hope I can help.

Useful links:

1. Built-in Exceptions
2. Errors and Exceptions
3. Compound statements