all Python 3http.clientexception

http.client.HTTPException

exceptions

The base class of every exception in http.client. It catches protocol errors but not socket-level network errors.

Syntax

except http.client.HTTPException as e: ...

except HTTPException will not catch a refused connection, a timeout or a socket-level drop: those are OSError and its subclasses (ConnectionRefusedError, TimeoutError). A robust handler catches both: except (http.client.HTTPException, OSError). The exception is RemoteDisconnected: it inherits both BadStatusLine and ConnectionResetError, so either branch catches it. A 404 or 500 response is not an exception at all.

Examples

import http.client
print(issubclass(http.client.LineTooLong, http.client.HTTPException))  # → True
print(issubclass(ConnectionRefusedError, http.client.HTTPException))  # → False
print(issubclass(http.client.RemoteDisconnected, OSError))  # → True

import http.client
import socket
server, client = socket.socketpair()
server.sendall(b'garbage\r\n')
server.close()
resp = http.client.HTTPResponse(client)
try:
    resp.begin()
except http.client.HTTPException as e:
    print(type(e).__name__)  # → BadStatusLine
client.close()

See also

Common errors

Open in the full glossarydocs.python.orgReport an inaccuracy