How to catch FloatingPointError Exception in Python?

Rajendra Dharmkar

Answered on 6th Dec, 2017

FloatingPointError is raised by floating point operations that result in errors, when floating point exception control (fpectl) is turned on. Enabling fpectl requires an interpreter compiled with the --with-fpectl flag.

The given code is rewritten as follows to handle the exception and find its type.

import sys
import math
import fpectl
try:
print 'Control off:', math.exp(700)
fpectl.turnon_sigfpe()
print 'Control on:', math.exp(1000)
except Exception as e:
print e
print sys.exc_type

OUTPUT

Control off: 1.01423205474e+304
Control on: in math_1
<type 'exceptions.FloatingPointError'>