Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Python Basics (Retired) Ins & Outs String Concatenation

Arun Shivaramakrishna
Arun Shivaramakrishna
4,771 Points

Unable to understand the cause of File "<stdin>" error

name = input("what is your name? ")

if name == "ABC": print (name + "is learning python and is a lumberjack") else: print(name + "already knows python")

5 Answers

William Li
PLUS
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

Looks like you're trying to run the Python script while inside the Python REPL. No, you can't do that.

First, you have to exit the Python REPL by entering exit(), then you can run the script with python lumberjack.py

You have a space in your first print statement print (name + "is learning python and is a lumberjack") directly after the word print in the if/else block.

name = input("what is your name? ")

if name == "ABC":
    print(name + "is learning python and is a lumberjack")
else: 
    print(name + "already knows python")
Arun Shivaramakrishna
Arun Shivaramakrishna
4,771 Points

I changed that , but i still get the below error

python lumberjack.py
File "<stdin>", line 1
python lumberjack.py
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Arun Shivaramakrishna
Arun Shivaramakrishna
4,771 Points

The same error still persists

exit()
treehouse:~/workspace$ python
Python 3.4.1 (default, Mar 16 2015, 15:20:22)
[GCC 4.8.2 20140120 (Red Hat 4.8.2-16)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
python lumberjack.py
File "<stdin>", line 1
python lumberjack.py
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

William Li
William Li
Courses Plus Student 26,868 Points

Hey Arun, you exit the REPL with exit(), then you enter REPL again with python command, don't do that, please, that'd only take you back to square one.

  1. exit()
  2. python lumberjack.py

that's all.

You command prompt has to be showing treehouse:~/workspace$, this is the indication that you're not in the Python REPL, then you can run the script by entering python lumberjack.py.