import zlib s = zlib.compress(b'This is just a test string.')[:-1] try: zlib.decompress(s) except zlib.error as e: print('zlib.decompress raises this:', e) else: print('zlib.decompress raises nothing.') try: d = zlib.decompressobj() d.decompress(s) print('zlib.Decompress.unconsumed_tail =', d.unconsumed_tail) d.flush() del d except zlib.error as e: print('zlib.Decompress raises this:', e) else: print('zlib.Decompress raises nothing.') print('decompress and Decompress should have raised identical exceptions.')