CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
jhammond
jhammond

Reputation: 2086

Python 'print' statement and arguments

I'm an experienced C++ developer, but am just getting my feet wet with Python for a project at work. I'm having some basic problems and Google has been less than helpful. I suspect something about my environment is funny, but I have no clue how to diagnose it. I wrote a simple script that merely prints an argument to the screen, but I am getting an error when running it (python args.py):

Syntax Error: invalid syntax
File "args.py", line 4
print arg0

For reference, there is a carrot underneath the 0 of arg0. The script in question:

import sys

firstArg = sys.argv[0]
print firstArg

I'm sure this is something really dumb, but Python is such a foreign thing, coming from C++.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1153

Answers (2)

Digvijay singh
Digvijay singh

Reputation: 171

I can understand that the print function of Python may be different for C or C++ developers because of its features. The syntax that you use is for python 2 (now in End Of Life status). There are many differences between Python 2 and python 3. In this case, the print was a statement in Python 2 but function in Python3. Here is the correct syntax for print function in Python3.

print(firstArg)

Brackets are important because print is a function. The print function in Python has some parameters which make it even more powerful.

Upvotes: 1

Thane Brimhall
Thane Brimhall

Reputation: 9555

This seems pretty obvious. The traceback says you have a SyntaxError on line 4, therefore print firstArg isn't valid Python.

The not obvious part is that a lot of examples on the Internet use syntax like that. This is because in Python 2.X versions, print was a statement. Since Python 3.0, print is a function. Try print(firstArg) instead.

Protip: If you want to enable the print function in Python 2, use from __future__ import print_function.

Upvotes: 4

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