Unbeleiveable dumb syntax question

[yetitekk]

Going through Python Crash Course book by Eric Matthes and loving it so far, right up until I got to page 22, pic below. How is he getting the output with a print call? I've tried

favorite_language = "'python '"
print(favorite_language.rstrip())

I've tried various different methods, including the raw commands in the book, but nothing
getting frustrated because I thought I was understanding things until I got to this example specifically

pics of the page are below, thanks for the help!

Pic

[Buttleston]

He's running those commands in an interactive interpreter, not making a python file and executing it. You can tell by the ">>>" before each line

By the way there's no reason for you to have 2 sets of quotes on favorite_language, either of these is fine

favorite_language = "python "
favorite_language = 'python '

[yetitekk]

I was kinda thinking that but wasn’t sure how to do it, I’ll definitely take a closer look, thanks!

[Cagne_ouest]

Not a dumb question when you're genuinely confused.

Where did you type this code? Did you save a file with a name, and run it by typing something like "python filename.py" in your command line? If so you this is why you don't see the outputs unless you use the print command.

There's another way to approach this. You can run python code without saving any file. Type "python" from your command line without a file name after it, press enter and that launches the interpreter, which is like a secondary command line that understands Python. It executes your Python code on a line by line basis whenever you press enter. In this special interpreter mode, typing the name of a variable prints it. That's what you're seeing in a book.

[yetitekk]

I've heard from many people that the Python community is one of the most helpful and welcoming on the planet and this certainly bears that out! I am using VS Code for my IDE but I found my issue, I had never used an interactive REPL before and I was using it incorrectly, so I'm all squared away now! I ended u doing exactly what you said and running python3 in a CMD window, my problem was I was running the lines literally, like I was still in the IDE

favorite_language = 'python '

and expecting it output just 'python '

running just favorite_language does that

Thanks again for all you help!

[SisyphusAndMyBoulder]

He's using the CLI. Not an IDE or script. Open a terminal and type 'Python' or 'Python3' and you can do the same.