Catch Broken Pipe in Python 2 AND Python 3

You can try using BrokenPipeError and if it throws a NameError, then fall back to socket.error, like this

import socket
try:
    expected_error = BrokenPipeError
except NameError:
    expected_error = socket.error

And then use it like this

try:
    1 == 2
except expected_error as ex:
    # Handle the actual exception here

If all you care about are broken pipe errors, then you might want to catch socket.error and simply check whether it's indeed a broken pipe error.

You can do so using the exception's errno attribute, which is present in both Python 2 and Python 3, which means, you don't need different Python 2 vs. 3 logic (I'd argue the intent is a little clearer this way):

import socket
import errno


try:
    do_something()
except socket.error as e:
    if e.errno != errno.EPIPE:
        # Not a broken pipe
        raise
    do_something_about_the_broken_pipe()

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If you do care about more than broken pipes, thefourtheye's answer is appropriate and idiomatic.