What is exception handling and how do you use it in your code?

Exception handling is a programming construct that allows a program to deal with unexpected events or errors that occur during execution. In most languages, you surround risky code with a try block, catch specific exception types in catch blocks, and optionally use a finally block to run cleanup code regardless of whether an exception occurred. The goal is to keep the program running or fail gracefully, provide useful error messages, and maintain a clean state. Best practices include: catching only the exceptions you can handle, logging the exception details (stack trace, message, context), rethrowing exceptions when you cannot recover, and avoiding empty catch blocks that swallow errors. In Python, for example:

try:
    result = risky_operation()
except ValueError as e:
    log.error("Invalid input: %s", e)
    raise
finally:
    cleanup()

This pattern ensures that errors are reported, resources are released, and the calling code can decide how to proceed.