Python Exceptions and "auto" Instantiation

Interesting thread on the python-list as to what happens regarding raising exceptions. The low-down: If you "raise ExceptionClass" and instance of that ExceptionClass is always created.

For example:

try: raise KeyError
except KeyError: pass

From the documentation:

raise evaluates the first expression as the exception object. It must be either a subclass or an instance of BaseException. If it is a class, the exception instance will be obtained when needed by instantiating the class with no arguments.

Some exception classes require arguments so the naked raise will fail with a TypeError.

 raise UnicodeDecodeError
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in
TypeError: function takes exactly 5 arguments (0 given)

Seems to me it is clearer to just do the raise with instance syntax:

try:
  raise KeyError()
except KeyError as e:
  pass