Broken pipe

If you are using python to write a script, please properly handle the broken pipe exception. We have set of command line tools at work that are extremely annoying to use because if you pipe the output through other standard tools, e.g., head, it spits out a worthless exception about a broken pipe. Consider the following test script:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
buffer = ""
for i in range(100000):
    buffer += "%d\n" % i
sys.stdout.write(buffer)

Pipe it into head and look at the output:

$ ./test.py | head -n1
0
ERROR:root:damn
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./test.py", line 6, in <module>
    sys.stdout.write(buffer)
IOError: [Errno 32] Broken pipe

I know there was a broken pipe and I don't care. Just swallow the worthless exception so I can see the meaningful output. This is probably the number one reason I often mutter "damn python crap" when using some of these tools. So if you are writing scripts in python, please be considerate and handle the broken pipe exception. Here is an example for quick reference:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import errno
import sys
try:
    buffer = ""
    for i in range(100000):
        buffer += "%d\n" % i
    sys.stdout.write(buffer)
except IOError, e:
    if e.errno != errno.EPIPE:
        raise e