Python try except finally

Question

It looks like I don't quite have the hang of Exception handling yet. I'm at a loss :( The following code sometimes returns this error:

File "applications/pingback/modules/plugin_h_pingback.py", line 190, in ping
    db(table.id==id_).update(status=status)
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'status' referenced before assignment

I would expect status to always have been assigned a value. Could it be that some other exception is thrown (perhaps in the inner try) and the finally obscures it?

...
try:
    server_url = self._get_pingback_server(target)
except PingbackClientError, e:
    status = e.message
else:
    try:
        server = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy(server_url)
        status = server.pingback.ping(self.source, target)
    except xmlrpclib.Fault, e:
        status = e
finally:
    db(table.id==id_).update(status=status) # <-- UnboundLocalError
...

Thanks, HC

Answer 1

Your code doesn't always assign something to status. I can see a few ways that status might not be assigned and I've highlighted them below:

try:
    server_url = self._get_pingback_server(target)
except PingbackClientError, e:
    # If evaluating `e.message` raises an exception then status is not set.
    status = e.message  # <--- here
else:
    try:
        # If either of these two lines fails with something other than
        # xmlrcplib.Fault, then status is not set.
        server = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy(server_url)             # <--- here
        status = server.pingback.ping(self.source, target)     # <--- here
    # If xmlrpclib.Fault is not defined status is not set.
    except xmlrpclib.Fault, e:                                 # <--- here
        status = e
finally:
    db(table.id==id_).update(status=status)

I suspect that the most likely place for the error is in the inner try block where you are only catching xmlrpclib.Fault and not other types of exceptions.