How to capture exception message in Python

Question

import ftplib
import urllib2
import os
import logging
logger = logging.getLogger('ftpuploader')
hdlr = logging.FileHandler('ftplog.log')
formatter = logging.Formatter('%(asctime)s %(levelname)s %(message)s')
hdlr.setFormatter(formatter)
logger.addHandler(hdlr)
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)
FTPADDR = "some ftp address"

def upload_to_ftp(con, filepath):
    try:
        f = open(filepath,'rb')                # file to send
        con.storbinary('STOR '+ filepath, f)         # Send the file
        f.close()                                # Close file and FTP
        logger.info('File successfully uploaded to '+ FTPADDR)
    except, e:
        logger.error('Failed to upload to ftp: '+ str(e))

This doesn't seem to work, I get syntax error, what is the proper way of doing this for logging all kind of exceptions to a file

Answer 1

You have to define which type of exception you want to catch. So write except Exception, e:instead of except, e: for a general exception (that will be logged anyway).

Other possibility is to write your whole try/except code this way:

try:
    with open(filepath,'rb') as f:
        con.storbinary('STOR '+ filepath, f)
    logger.info('File successfully uploaded to '+ FTPADDR)
except Exception, e:
    logger.error('Failed to upload to ftp: '+ str(e))

in Python 3.x and modern versions of Python 2.x use except Exception as e instead of except Exception, e:

try:
    with open(filepath,'rb') as f:
        con.storbinary('STOR '+ filepath, f)
    logger.info('File successfully uploaded to '+ FTPADDR)
except Exception as e:
    logger.error('Failed to upload to ftp: '+ str(e))