CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.x
tarashish
tarashish

Reputation: 1965

is print a function in Python?

In python everything is an object and you can pass it around easily.

So I can do :

>> def b():
   ....print "b"
>> a = b
>> a()
   b

But if I do 

a = print

I get SyntaxError . Why so ?

Upvotes: 9

Views: 675

Answers (4)

Jon Clements
Jon Clements

Reputation: 142136

In Python 2.x, print is a statement not a function. In 2.6+ you can enable it to be a function within a given module using from __future__ import print_function. In Python 3.x it is a function that can be passed around.

Upvotes: 20

mgilson
mgilson

Reputation: 309891

The other answers are correct. print is a statement, not a function in python2.x. What you have will work on python3. The only thing that I have to add is that if you want something that will work on python2 and python3, you can pass around sys.stdout.write. This doesn't write a newline (unlike print) -- it acts like any other file object.

Upvotes: 4

Daenyth
Daenyth

Reputation: 37441

In python2, print is a statement. If you do from __future__ import print_function, you can do as you described. In python3, what you tried works without any imports, since print was made a function.

This is covered in PEP3105

Upvotes: 6

Kimvais
Kimvais

Reputation: 39548

print is not a function in pre 3.x python. It doesn't even look like one, you don't need to call it by (params)

Upvotes: 3

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