CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python-2.7
DarthOpto
DarthOpto

Reputation: 1652

Name Error, not sure why

I am going through Python Programming for the Absolute Beginner, Third Edition and Chapter 4 has some code which gets a user's message and prints the len() of the message and then tells the user if there is an 'e' in the message:

My code I typed in emulating what is in the book is:

# Message Analyzer
# Demonstrates the len() operator and the in operator

message = input('Please enter a message: ')
print ('The length of your message is: ', len(message))
print 'The most common letter in the English language, \'e\','
if "e" in message:
    print ('is in your message.')
else:
    print 'is not in your message'

When I run it and try it with any phrase or word I am getting the following error:

Please enter a message: enter
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/daddy/PycharmProjects/python_programming_exercises/chapter 4 - message analyzer.py", line 5, in <module>
message = input('Please enter a message: ')
File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'enter' is not defined

I tried casting message as a str() by doing str(input('Please enter a message: ')) but that gives the same error as well.

What is causing this? What do I need to do to fix it?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 44

Answers (2)

DarthOpto
DarthOpto

Reputation: 1652

I wrapped the above in a function and passed in the message as a parameter to the function. Works just fine. 

# Message Analyzer
# Demonstrates the len() operator and the in operator


def message_analyzer(message):

    print ('The length of your message is: ', len(message))
    print 'The most common letter in the English language, \'e\','
    if "e" in message:
        print ('is in your message.')
    else:
        print 'is not in your message'

message_analyzer('The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog')

Upvotes: 0

Cody Piersall
Cody Piersall

Reputation: 8547

Change your first line from using input: 

message = input('Please enter a message: ')

to raw_input.

message = raw_input('Please enter a message: ')

input actually evaluates the string you pass in, so when you type enter, Python looks for a variable named enter, doesn't find it, and gives you an error.

raw_input just returns the string.

Upvotes: 1

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