Thanks very much Martin. I did "solve" the problem after you kindly emailed - but the solution has puzzled me more that the original problem.
On Tuesday 05 July 2011 23:23:41 Martin wrote: > : lisi@Tux:~/Python/LearnPythonTheHardWay$ python ex26.py > : File "ex26.py", line 10 > : def print_first_word(words) > : ^ > : SyntaxError: invalid syntax > : lisi@Tux:~/Python/LearnPythonTheHardWay$ > > Look at the error. Look at the error carefully. > > Look at the definitions of your other functions.... > > Compare. What is different? I could see nothing that was different. > do you see the colon? Yes - it was one of the first things I looked for when the error came up (that and check that the brackets were right). It was there in what seemed to me to be the right position. > > def silly_function(args): > > Curiously, the sample that you pasted above has the required colon > at the end of the line which starts the function definition. > > : def print_first_word(words): > : """Prints the first word after popping it off.""" > : word=words.pop(0) > : print word > > I have heard people express frustration many times about how a > program(ming language) or "the computer" did not understand > something because the thing was 'missing a damned semicolon'. I know that the smallest difference matters when dealing with a computer but could - and can - find none. > Try again, keep with it, and recognize that these beasties are > awfully particular in what they accept. And, for good reason. I have no difficulty with the fact that computers are literal minded. They are after all, machines. But "try again" was obviously great advice, and you had given me the push I needed to try again when I had given up. In the end, having tried absolutely everything else I could think of, and given that the error arose at the closing bracket at the end of line 10, I tried the only thing I could remotely think of that I hadn't tried and put a space in between the second bracket and the colon - and the wretched thing ran. So I altered line six in the same way - and that still ran. So line six will run either with or without the space. I then typed the next 2 sections in, and they ran, like line 6, either with or without the space. So line 10 needs a space and the other sections are happy either with or without. And they all have """ at the beginning of the next line. You could obviously see something wrong that I had continued, and continue, to miss, and I have still not found it. Hitting on the "right" solution almost by serendipity doesn't really count as seeing something wrong!! > Best of luck, Lisi, Thanks again very much Martin. You really encouraged me. I am obviously not going to get any further now, I am so bogged down in the whole thing. So I think that I may need to pass on and come back to it later. Lisi _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
