How to use "raise" keyword in Python

It has two purposes.

jackcogdill has given the first one:

It's used for raising your own errors.

if something:
   raise Exception('My error!')

The second is to reraise the current exception in an exception handler, so that it can be handled further up the call stack.

try:
  generate_exception()
except SomeException as e:
  if not can_handle(e):
    raise
  handle_exception(e)

raise without any arguments is a special use of python syntax. It means get the exception and re-raise it. If this usage it could have been called reraise.

    raise

From The Python Language Reference:

If no expressions are present, raise re-raises the last exception that was active in the current scope.

If raise is used alone without any argument is strictly used for reraise-ing. If done in the situation that is not at a reraise of another exception, the following error is shown: RuntimeError: No active exception to reraise

It's used for raising errors.

if something:
    raise Exception('My error!')

Some examples here

You can use it to raise errors as part of error-checking:

if (a < b):
    raise ValueError()

Or handle some errors, and then pass them on as part of error-handling:

try:
    f = open('file.txt', 'r')
except IOError:
    # do some processing here
    # and then pass the error on
    raise