Question

try:
    case_no  = re.search("Case Number:</span></td><td><span class=\"Value\">([^<]*?)<",br.response().read()).group(1)
except:
       try:
           try:
               case_no  = re.search("Citation Number:</span></td><td><span class=\"Value\">([^<]*?)<",br.response().read()).group(1)
            except:
               case_no  = re.search("Citation Number:</span></td><td><span class=\"Value\">([^<]*?)<",br.response().read()).group(1)
        except:
              case_no  = "N/A"

As you can see the above code is quite clumsy. I want to know if there is any way I can do like this.

try:
    XYZ
except:
    DOXYZ
except:
    DOXYZ

Basically I want to be able to use – “try X if exception then try Y if exception then try Z” without nesting too much statemtns.

Answer 1

Probably you shouldn’t be checking exception at all?

patterns = [
  "Case Number:</span></td><td><span class=\"Value\">([^<]*?)<",
  "Citation Number:</span></td><td><span class=\"Value\">([^<]*?)<",
  "Citation Number:</span></td><td><span class=\"Value\">([^<]*?)<"   # same as #2?
]
text = br.response().read()
case_no  = "N/A"
for pattern in patterns:
  res = re.search(pattern, text)
  if res:
    case_no = res.group(1)
    break