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Python Python Basics (Retired) Ins & Outs String Concatenation

Lauren O'Brien
Lauren O'Brien
7,420 Points
Posted by Lauren O'Brien
Lauren O'Brien
7,420 Points

python in terminal requires "" for response to input() prompt

Hi Kenneth,

I was trying to follow the tutorial using the native terminal / python in osx -- if i answer the prompt without enclosing my response in quotes i get the following error:

What's your name? Lauren Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "<string>", line 1, in <module> File "<string>", line 1, in <module> NameError: name 'Lauren' is not defined

with quotes, no problem:

What's your name? "Lauren" Lauren is a lumberjack and he/she's OK!

Any idea why this might be? Is there a module or something I need to add to the native python?

Thanks for your help!

3 Answers

Joseph Kato
Joseph Kato
35,340 Points
Joseph Kato
Joseph Kato
35,340 Points

Are you using Python 2.x by any chance?

In Python 2, input() performs an eval() on the entered values, which would explain the NameError. To get around this, you could use raw_input(), or you could switch to Python 3 and continue to use input().

Lauren O'Brien
Lauren O'Brien
7,420 Points
Lauren O'Brien
Lauren O'Brien
7,420 Points

Aha! Thank you! I had simply typed "python" from the terminal prompt instead of "python3". Works like a charm now.

Kenneth Love
STAFF
Kenneth Love
Treehouse Guest Teacher
Kenneth Love
Kenneth Love
Treehouse Guest Teacher

Yeah, as soon as I saw that NameError, I knew it was a Python 2 problem. Good catch, Joseph Kato!

If you do want to write this in Python 2 instead of 3, use raw_input() instead of input().