> ## Documentation Index
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> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Raise-Specific-Error

#### Sourcery rule id: `raise-specific-error`

#### Description

Raise a specific error instead of the general `Exception` or `BaseException`


#### Match

```python
raise Exception
```



#### Explanation

If a piece of code raises a specific exception type
rather than the generic
[`BaseException`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#BaseException)
or [`Exception`](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#Exception),
the calling code can:

- get more information about what type of error it is
- define specific exception handling for it

This way, callers of the code can handle the error appropriately.

How can you solve this?

- Use one of the [built-in exceptions](https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html) of the standard library.
- [Define your own error class](https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/errors.html#tut-userexceptions) that subclasses `Exception`.

So instead of having code raising `Exception` or `BaseException` like

```python
if incorrect_input(value):
    raise Exception("The input is incorrect")
```

you can have code raising a specific error like

```python
if incorrect_input(value):
    raise ValueError("The input is incorrect")
```

or

```python
class IncorrectInputError(Exception):
    pass


if incorrect_input(value):
    raise IncorrectInputError("The input is incorrect")
```