CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Seb
Seb

Reputation: 2016

Parameter argument not working right (beginner)

Newb question, when I write:

def right_indent(s):
    print ' '*70+'s'       #puts argument after 70 spaces
right_indent('michael')
                                                                     s

Why does it return s as a result? Shouldn't it be michael? This seems really simple but I have no idea what I'm doing wrong

Upvotes: 0

Views: 57

Answers (3)

mgilson
mgilson

Reputation: 309841

All of the previous answers are correct. I just thought that it might be important to mention that your function returns None (since it has no return ... statement). (try:

A=right_indent('michael')
print A   #Prints 'None'

Upvotes: 0

steveha
steveha

Reputation: 76695

This is the name of the variable: s

This is what you put instead: 's'

A value enclosed in quotes is a string literal.

Upvotes: 2

octern
octern

Reputation: 4868

There are quote marks around s, so it treats it as a literal string instead of as a variable name. Try:

print ' '*70+s

You might be familiar with PHP, which happily translates variable names even if they're inside quotes. Python doesn't.

Upvotes: 2

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