How do I integrate custom exception handling with the FastAPI exception handling? - python-3.x

Question

Python version 3.9, FastAPI version 0.78.0
I have a custom function that I use for application exception handling. When requests run into internal logic problems, i.e I want to send an HTTP response of 400 for some reason, I call a utility function.
#staticmethod
def raise_error(error: str, code: int) -> None:
logger.error(error)
raise HTTPException(status_code=code, detail=error)
Not a fan of this approach. So I look at
from fastapi import FastAPI, HTTPException, status
from fastapi.respones import JSONResponse
class ExceptionCustom(HTTPException):
pass
def exception_404_handler(request: Request, exc: HTTPException):
return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_404_NOT_FOUND, content={"message": "404"})
app.add_exception_handler(ExceptionCustom, exception_404_handler)
The problem I run into with the above approach is the inability to pass in the message as an argument.
Any thoughts on the whole topic?

Answer 1

Your custom exception can have any custom attributes that you want. Let's say you write it this way:
class ExceptionCustom(HTTPException):
pass
in your custom handler, you can do something like
def exception_404_handler(request: Request, exc: HTTPException):
return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_404_NOT_FOUND, content={"message": exc.detail})
Then, all you need to do is to raise the exception this way:
raise ExceptionCustom(status_code=404, detail='error message')
Note that you are creating a handler for this specific ExceptionCustom. If all you need is the message, you can write something more generic:
class MyHTTPException(HTTPException):
pass
def my_http_exception_handler(request: Request, exc: HTTPException):
return JSONResponse(status_code=exc.status_code, content={"message": exc.detail})
app.add_exception_handler(MyHTTPException, my_http_exception_handler)
This way you can raise any exception, with any status code and any message and have the message in your JSON response.
There's a detailed explanation on FastAPI docs

Answer 2

You can add custom exception handlers, and use attributes in your Exception class (i.e., class MyException(Exception) in the example below) to pass any message/variables that you would like to do so. The exception handler (i.e., #app.exception_handler(MyException) in the case below) will handle the exception as you wish and return your custom message. For more options, please have a look at this related answer as well.
Working Example
To trigger the exception in the example below, access the following URL from your browser: http://localhost:8000/something
from fastapi import FastAPI, Request, status
from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse
class MyException(Exception):
def __init__(self, name: str):
self.name = name
app = FastAPI()
#app.exception_handler(MyException)
async def my_exception_handler(request: Request, exc: MyException):
return JSONResponse(status_code=status.HTTP_404_NOT_FOUND,
content={"message": f"{exc.name} cannot be found." })
#app.get("/{name}")
def read_name(name: str):
if name == "something":
raise MyException(name=name)
return {"name": name}