On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 3:50 PM, ryguy7272 <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm trying to run this script (using IDLE 3.4)
> I would be most appreciative if someone could respond to a few questions.
>
> The error that I get is this.
> 'invalid syntax'
You may get better help if you give the context of this message.
> The second single quote in this line is highlighted pink.
> print 'Downloading data from Yahoo for %s sector' % sector
>
> #1) That's very bizarre to mix single quotes and double quotes in a single
> language. Does Python actually mix single quotes and double quotes?
I'm not sure what you mean by "mix". C uses single quotes and double
quotes, right?
Python treats single quotes and double quotes pretty much
interchangeably, except if you start a string with a single quote (for
example), you can easily put a double quote inside it, and you must
terminate the string with another single quote. And vice versa.
> #2) In the Python 3.4 Shell window, I turn the debugger on by clicking
> 'Debugger'. Then I run the file I just created; it's called 'stock.py'. I
> get the error immediately, and I can't debug anything so I can't tell what's
> going on. This is very frustrating. All the controls in the debugger are
> greyed out. What's up with the debugger?
You have Python 2.x code there. The differences between 2.x and 3.x
are far from insurmountable, but it does require a little code
adjustment. If you're a python novice, you might be better off
running this under 2.x.
I believe your debugger won't help until your code compiles.
> #3) My final question is this? How do I get this code running? It seems
> like there is a problem with a single quote, which is just silly. I can't
> get the debugger working, so I can't tell what's going on. The only thins I
> know, or I think I know, is that the proper libraries seem to be installed,
> so that's one thing that's working.
The print statement in 2.x has been made a print function in 3.x;
that's likely necessary to fix, though not necessarily sufficient.
EG in 2.x:
print 'hello word', 6
while in 3.x that would be:
print('hello world', 6)
Interestingly, you can write a single command that works in both with:
print('hello world {}'.format(6))
To 2.x, it's printing the result of a parenthesized expression. To
3.x, it's a function call with one argument.
> I'd really appreciate it if someone could please answer my questions and help
> me get this straightened out, so I can have some fun with Python. So far,
> I've spent 2 months reading 4 books, and trying all kinds of sample
> code...and almost every single thing fails and I have no idea why.
You may also need to install pytz, pandas and BeautifulSoup. I favor
pip or pip3 for such things.
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