Unused exception object — CodeQL query help documentation

ID: py/unused-exception-object
Kind: problem
Security severity: 
Severity: error
Precision: very-high
Tags:
   - quality
   - reliability
   - error-handling
Query suites:
   - python-code-quality.qls
   - python-security-and-quality.qls

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Creating a new exception object is no different from creating any other object. The exception needs to be raised to have an effect.

Recommendation¶

Insert a raise before the exception.

Example¶

In this example, the first function do_action_forgotten_raise() silently ignores any erroneous input. Whereas, the second function do_action correctly raises an exception if the ‘action’ is not understood.


def do_action_forgotten_raise(action):
    if action == "go":
        start()
    elif action == "stop":
        stop()
    else:
        ValueError(action)

def do_action(action):
    if action == "go":
        start()
    elif action == "stop":
        stop()
    else:
        raise ValueError(action)