Exception raise in Python 3.3

Question

I have this example in book, but it does not work in my python 3.3

x = 'item found'

def search():
    raise x or return

try:
    search()
except x:
    print('exception')
else:
    print('no exception')

Could any one tell me why?

Answer 1

Simple: return is a statement, not an expression. Statements have to appear on their own line. raise is a statement too, it expects it's expression to evaluate to an exception to raise, but neither x nor the return statement fulfills that.

As it stands, the line is complete nonsense. It is not valid Python.

What happens instead, is that the Python parser will flag this code as invalid and raise a SyntaxError exception for the whole file . No code contained in the file will actually be run:

  File "demo.py", line 4
    raise x or return
                    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax