https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62261

Bug ID: 62261 Summary: Throw specific error instead of generic APIError if claim target is deleted Product: Pywikibot Version: core (2.0) Hardware: All OS: All Status: NEW Severity: minor Priority: Unprioritized Component: Wikidata Assignee: Pywikipedia-bugs@lists.wikimedia.org Reporter: felix@fex-it.de Web browser: --- Mobile Platform: ---

If adding a claim, two types of errors are thrown in case of a deleted item:

item = pywikibot.ItemPage(repo, "Q726") target = pywikibot.ItemPage(repo, "Q14854094") c = pywikibot.Claim(repo, u'P171') c.addTarget(target) item.addClaim(c) # Error if item or target were deleted

At the last line, you get either

pywikibot.exceptions.NoPage: Page [[wikidata:-1]] doesn't exist.

if item (Q726) has been deleted or

pywikibot.data.api.APIError: invalid-snak-value: Q14854094 not found

if the target (Q14854094) has been deleted.

It would be great, if for the latter a specific "InvalidValueError" or similar would be thrown. Then, the error could be caught and handled specifically without the need to parse the (possibly changing) API error message itself.