# Python Cgitb Module

The `cgitb` module provides a special exception handler for Python scripts. (The name stands for "CGI Traceback".) It is primarily designed to help debug CGI scripts by formatting tracebacks as detailed HTML reports, but it can also be used in other contexts to produce rich text-based tracebacks.

## Importing the Module

```python
import cgitb
```

## Basic Usage

To enable the `cgitb` exception handler, simply call the `enable()` function at the top of your script.

```python
import cgitb
cgitb.enable()
```

When an uncaught exception occurs, `cgitb` will take over and display a detailed report. By default, this report is formatted as HTML and printed to standard output (which is useful for CGI scripts running in a web server).

## Configuration Options

The `enable()` function accepts several optional arguments to customize its behavior.

### `display`

If `display` is set to `1` (the default), the traceback is sent to the browser (stdout). If set to `0`, the traceback is suppressed.

### `logdir`

If `logdir` is specified, the traceback reports are written to files in that directory. This is useful if you don't want to show errors to the user but still want to record them.

```python
import cgitb
import os

# Create a directory for logs if it doesn't exist
if not os.path.exists('logs'):
    os.makedirs('logs')

# Enable cgitb, don't display to user, log to 'logs' directory
cgitb.enable(display=0, logdir='logs')
```

### `format`

The `format` argument controls the output format.
*   `"html"` (default): Produces an HTML report.
*   `"text"`: Produces a plain text report.

```python
import cgitb

# Enable text-based reporting
cgitb.enable(format='text')

def func(a, b):
    return a / b

func(1, 0) # This will trigger the cgitb handler
```

[[programming/python/python]]