I have a basic "best practices" Python question. I see that there are already StackOverflow answers tangentially related to this question but they're mired in complicated examples or involve multiple factors. Given this code: #!/usr/bin/python def test_function(): try: a = str(5) raise b = str(6) except: print b test_function() what is the best way to avoid the inevitable "UnboundLocalError: local variable 'b' referenced before assignment" that I'm going to get in the exception handler? Does python have an elegant way to handle this? If not, what about an inelegant way? In a complicated function I'd prefer to avoid testing the existence of every local variable before I, for example, printed debug information about them.