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Python

Posted by Daniel Sayre
Daniel Sayre
884 Points

5 vs 'dogs'?

Towards the end of the strings video, Kenneth states that python knows 5 is a string so it does not need any quotes. So why does he add single quote to 'dogs'?

Blaine McCarthy
Blaine McCarthy
17,030 Points

Can you link to the video? I can't see / don't know where to look to find out what step you're in.

Daniel Sayre
Daniel Sayre
884 Points

It starts around 7:21 of the Strings video. Here is the URL: https://teamtreehouse.com/library/python-basics/python-data-types/strings

1 Answer

Blaine McCarthy
Blaine McCarthy
17,030 Points
Blaine McCarthy
Blaine McCarthy
17,030 Points

If you take the quotes out of 'dogs', Python will think you've defined a variable named "dogs" and are trying to pass it. Since we haven't defined a variable named "dogs", Python will have nothin to pass to the message via format.

dogs = "Spot and Lou"
message = "The names of the dogs are {}".format(dogs)

Will generate "The names of the dogs are Spot and Lou".

dogs = "Spot and Lou"
message = "The names of the dogs are {}".format('dogs')

This will cause the message to be "The names of the dogs are dogs." Because you're giving Python a string to pass - and it knows that because its in quotes.