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Python

Posted by spencer tintorri
spencer tintorri
6,184 Points

How to tell if something is followed by a colon, a paren, or neither?

Is there a standard way to know if a term is followed by a paren (i.e. print), a colon (i.e. try), or neither (i.e. import, def)?

Thank you.

Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points

To me, the best/standard way is to check the Python Docs.

The strange thing is that every time I go there, I return knowing something new. Enjoy :tropical_drink: :palm_tree:

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
243,332 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
243,332 Points

The parentheses are easy, they go with functions. Any time you invoke a function you must put parentheses after the name. If the function takes one or more parameters, then you put the arguments inside the parentheses.

The colon isn't something I've thought of by itself, I guess I just learned it as part of the syntax. But it does seem that any keyword that works on its own doesn't use a colon. Things that work with other code statements seem to have colons. Like "if" and "else" which control whether the following statement(s) execute, "for" and "while" which cause other statements to loop, and "try" and "except" which set up exception handling while the other statements run.

Those probably aren't the definitive rules you may have been hoping for, but does it help?