How do I raise the same Exception with a custom message in Python?

If you're lucky enough to only support python 3.x, this really becomes a thing of beauty :)

raise from

We can chain the exceptions using raise from.

try:
    1 / 0
except ZeroDivisionError as e:
    raise Exception('Smelly socks') from e

In this case, the exception your caller would catch has the line number of the place where we raise our exception.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 2, in <module>
    1 / 0
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 4, in <module>
    raise Exception('Smelly socks') from e
Exception: Smelly socks

Notice the bottom exception only has the stacktrace from where we raised our exception. Your caller could still get the original exception by accessing the __cause__ attribute of the exception they catch.

with_traceback

Or you can use with_traceback.

try:
    1 / 0
except ZeroDivisionError as e:
    raise Exception('Smelly socks').with_traceback(e.__traceback__)

Using this form, the exception your caller would catch has the traceback from where the original error occurred.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 2, in <module>
    1 / 0
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "test.py", line 4, in <module>
    raise Exception('Smelly socks').with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
  File "test.py", line 2, in <module>
    1 / 0
Exception: Smelly socks

Notice the bottom exception has the line where we performed the invalid division as well as the line where we reraise the exception.

Update: For Python 3, check Ben's answer

Update 2023: I wrote this answer more than ten years ago and there are better answers now. You should be using python 3 and the answer above.

Original answer:

To attach a message to the current exception and re-raise it: (the outer try/except is just to show the effect)

For python 2.x where x>=6:

try:
    try:
      raise ValueError  # something bad...
    except ValueError as err:
      err.message=err.message+" hello"
      raise              # re-raise current exception
except ValueError as e:
    print(" got error of type "+ str(type(e))+" with message " +e.message)

This will also do the right thing if err is derived from ValueError. For example UnicodeDecodeError.

Note that you can add whatever you like to err. For example err.problematic_array=[1,2,3].

Edit: @Ducan points in a comment the above does not work with python 3 since .message is not a member of ValueError. Instead you could use this (valid python 2.6 or later or 3.x):

try:
    try:
      raise ValueError
    except ValueError as err:
       if not err.args: 
           err.args=('',)
       err.args = err.args + ("hello",)
       raise 
except ValueError as e:
    print(" error was "+ str(type(e))+str(e.args))

Edit2:

Depending on what the purpose is, you can also opt for adding the extra information under your own variable name. For both python2 and python3:

try:
    try:
      raise ValueError
    except ValueError as err:
       err.extra_info = "hello"
       raise 
except ValueError as e:
    print(" error was "+ str(type(e))+str(e))
    if 'extra_info' in dir(e):
       print e.extra_info

This only works with Python 3. You can modify the exception's original arguments and add your own arguments.

An exception remembers the args it was created with. I presume this is so that you can modify the exception.

In the function reraise we prepend the exception's original arguments with any new arguments that we want (like a message). Finally we re-raise the exception while preserving the trace-back history.

def reraise(e, *args):
  '''re-raise an exception with extra arguments
  :param e: The exception to reraise
  :param args: Extra args to add to the exception
  '''

  # e.args is a tuple of arguments that the exception with instantiated with.
  #
  e.args = args + e.args

  # Recreate the exception and preserve the traceback info so that we can see 
  # where this exception originated.
  #
  raise e.with_traceback(e.__traceback__)   


def bad():
  raise ValueError('bad')

def very():
  try:
    bad()
  except Exception as e:
    reraise(e, 'very')

def very_very():
  try:
    very()
  except Exception as e:
    reraise(e, 'very')

very_very()

output

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "main.py", line 35, in <module>
    very_very()
  File "main.py", line 30, in very_very
    reraise(e, 'very')
  File "main.py", line 15, in reraise
    raise e.with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
  File "main.py", line 28, in very_very
    very()
  File "main.py", line 24, in very
    reraise(e, 'very')
  File "main.py", line 15, in reraise
    raise e.with_traceback(e.__traceback__)
  File "main.py", line 22, in very
    bad()
  File "main.py", line 18, in bad
    raise ValueError('bad')
ValueError: ('very', 'very', 'bad')

It seems all the answers are adding info to e.args[0], thereby altering the existing error message. Is there a downside to extending the args tuple instead? I think the possible upside is, you can leave the original error message alone for cases where parsing that string is needed; and you could add multiple elements to the tuple if your custom error handling produced several messages or error codes, for cases where the traceback would be parsed programmatically (like via a system monitoring tool).

## Approach #1, if the exception may not be derived from Exception and well-behaved:

def to_int(x):
    try:
        return int(x)
    except Exception as e:
        e.args = (e.args if e.args else tuple()) + ('Custom message',)
        raise

>>> to_int('12')
12

>>> to_int('12 monkeys')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 3, in to_int
ValueError: ("invalid literal for int() with base 10: '12 monkeys'", 'Custom message')

or

## Approach #2, if the exception is always derived from Exception and well-behaved:

def to_int(x):
    try:
        return int(x)
    except Exception as e:
        e.args += ('Custom message',)
        raise

>>> to_int('12')
12

>>> to_int('12 monkeys')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<stdin>", line 3, in to_int
ValueError: ("invalid literal for int() with base 10: '12 monkeys'", 'Custom message')

Can you see a downside to this approach?