2.13: Debugging
- Page ID
- 3008
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At this point, the syntax error you are most likely to make is an illegal variable name, like class
and yield
, which are keywords, or odd~job
and US$
, which contain illegal characters.
If you put a space in a variable name, Python thinks it is two operands without an operator:
>>> bad name = 5
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> month = 09
File "<stdin>", line 1
month = 09
^
SyntaxError: invalid token
For syntax errors, the error messages don't help much. The most common messages are SyntaxError: invalid syntax
and SyntaxError: invalid token
, neither of which is very informative.
The runtime error you are most likely to make is a "use before def;" that is, trying to use a variable before you have assigned a value. This can happen if you spell a variable name wrong:
>>> principal = 327.68
>>> interest = principle * rate
NameError: name 'principle' is not defined
Variables names are case sensitive, so LaTeX
is not the same as latex
.
At this point, the most likely cause of a semantic error is the order of operations. For example, to evaluate 1/2π, you might be tempted to write
>>> 1.0 / 2.0 * pi
But the division happens first, so you would get π/2, which is not the same thing! There is no way for Python to know what you meant to write, so in this case you don't get an error message; you just get the wrong answer.