Debugging and Error Handling in Python: Tips and Tricks

Learn about the most useful tips and tricks for debugging and error handling in Python

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Debugging and error handling are crucial parts of software development. No matter how carefully you write your code, you will eventually run into bugs and errors that need to be fixed.

Let’s look at some of the most exciting and useful tips and tricks for debugging and error handling in Python.

Print Debugging

My favorite! One of the simplest and most effective ways to debug your code is to use print statements. You can use print statements to inspect the values of variables and to see the flow of your program. Here’s an example of using print statements to debug a simple Python script:

def divide(a, b):
    print(f"a: {a}")
    print(f"b: {b}")
    result = a / b
    print(f"result: {result}")
    return result

result = divide(10, 5)
print(f"final result: {result}")

In this example, we define a divide function that takes two arguments, a and b, and returns the result of a / b. We use print statements to inspect the values of a, b, and result at various points in the function. Running this script will produce the following output: