CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpycharm
ALEXANDRE SECCO WEKSLER
ALEXANDRE SECCO WEKSLER

Reputation:

Indentation Problems Pycharm

I'm new to coding and python so i'm doing an online free course. There's one task that i'm supposed to do that is not working properly, and apparently the problem is identation. Here's the code:

c = 0
while c < 5:
    c += 1
    if c == 3:
        continue
        print (c)

So the last line is aligned with the previous one, and the code only runs properly after I delete one identation from the last line. How do I configure this to be automatic so I won't have to delete it all the time?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 179

Answers (2)

Swati Srivastava
Swati Srivastava

Reputation: 1157

In your code, print(c) is after continue. But statements after continue is not executed. continue works as ignore the statements after it and go for the next iteration. So print(c) doesn't work. Your code should be like this :-

c = 0
while c < 5:
    c += 1
    if c == 3:
        continue
    print (c)

This will print

1
2
4
5

Upvotes: 0

Matt Messersmith
Matt Messersmith

Reputation: 13747

TLDR: In general, no, you cannot configure this automatically. However, there are some specific cases where we can say a statement is definitely in the wrong scope with the help of a linter. The onus is still on the programmer to actually correct the program, though, even with the help of the linter.

General Case:

No programming language can know what scope you'd like a statement to be in. That is for you, the programmer, to express in the language. Python's scoping happens to be determined by whitespace, not curly braces, like in some other popular languages (namely C/C++/Java/Perl).

Consider:

if x:
    do_y()
    do_z()

vs.

if x:
    do_y()
do_z()

Both are legal Python programs, and both are (potentially) logically correct, depending on the application. Maybe you only want to call do_z() if x is true (first example). Or maybe you always want to call do_z() regardless of x (second example). Only the application developer can decide which they want. And which one you want might actually change over time, depending on circumstance. So it should be very clear that this decision (in general) cannot be made automatically.

Using pylint:

However, sometimes what we can say is that some statement is definitely in the wrong scope (like in your example above, a statement immediately after a continue can never be reached).

You can use a linter (like pylint) to help with this:

In test.py I've placed your question code and gave it a quick pylint:

(so) URSA-MattM-MacBook:stackoverflow mmessersmith$ cat test.py
c = 0
while c < 5:
    c += 1
    if c == 3:
        continue
        print(c)
(so) URSA-MattM-MacBook:stackoverflow mmessersmith$ pylint test.py
************* Module test
test.py:1:0: C0111: Missing module docstring (missing-docstring)
test.py:1:0: C0103: Constant name "c" doesn't conform to UPPER_CASE naming style (invalid-name)
test.py:6:8: W0101: Unreachable code (unreachable)

------------------------------------------------------------------
Your code has been rated at 5.00/10 (previous run: 5.00/10, +0.00)

Note that this line: test.py:6:8: W0101: Unreachable code (unreachable). That's telling you that line 6 can never be executed, regardless of program state.

Furthermore, note that any linter still cannot automatically correct indent. There are two legal possibilities for where the print(c) statement should be indented:

c = 0
while c < 5:
    c += 1
    if c == 3:
        continue
    print (c)

and

c = 0
while c < 5:
    c += 1
    if c == 3:
        continue
print (c)

Both are legal (and reasonable) Python programs! The first will print c in every iteration of the while loop, the second will only print c after the loop has finished. Only you, the programmer, can decide which one you'd like. All the linter can say is "you almost certainly didn't mean to put a statement immediately after a continue, since that code will never be executed".

Again, it is up to you where you'd like the statement. No automated tool can automatically place the statement for you, because it can't possibly know what you want to accomplish.

Upvotes: 3

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