[Python] Raising Exceptions if something goes wrong, return a value if function completes...

I'm writing an API authentication function and basically I'd like it to do this:

def authenticate():
params = {"credential": "xxxx"}
url = "www.test-api.com/oauth.token"
response = request.post(url, params)

if response.status_code == 200:
token = response.json()
return token
else:
raise RuntimeError("Authentication failed")


Then, in main():

try:
token = authenticate()
except RuntimeError:
print("Error")
else:
print("good")


I can see the Runtime Error, but the else block also runs, ie "good" is printed after the traceback. I suspect it is due to authenticate() returning None when the exception is raised. Is it possible/best practice to have something like this? I'd like to keep the exception as I want it for logging purposes.

Here is my log file:

2025-04-15 10:19:00 - ERROR - An error has been caught in function '<module>', process 'MainProcess' (2468551), thread 'MainThread' (140286569478016):
Traceback (most recent call last):

> File "/testing/Python/Code/test.py", line 35, in <module>
token = authenticate(
│ └ <function authenticate at 0x7f96fcc0eac0>
└ <module 'ShareFile_API' from '/testing/Python/Code/Python/Code/utilities/API.py'>

File "/testing/Python/Code/utilities/API.py", line 60, in authenticate
raise RuntimeError(f"API Authentication Error {response.status_code} {response.reason}")

RuntimeError: ShareFile API Authentication Error 400 Bad Request
2025-04-15 10:19:00 - INFO - Authentication successful

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