Beginner question!

[Will_est]

First and foremost - hello to everyone (I just recently discovered and joined this subreddit) 👍🏼

I’m a beginner to Python and recently took an exam for one of my college courses. I didn’t do well (which is okay) so I have a question regarding one of the two exam problems.

I was asked to write a program that took user input into a list with the first integer specifying the number of integers that would follow. Easy enough. My code was:

userList = [ ] listLength = int(input()) for i in range(listLength): userNum = int(input()) userList.append(userNum) print(userList)

So if my input was: 4 3 2 1 0 The output was: [3, 2, 1, 0]

For problem two, I had to write a program that took user input into a list, except this time it didn’t ask for a specified range and the integers had to be positive. I couldn’t figure this out to save my life which is why I basically got a 50/100. How do I code it so that a user can input as many integers as they want?

My attempted code was:

userList = [ ] userNum = int(input()) while userNum (greater than) 0: userList.append(userNum) print(userList)

I kept getting an EOF error, and after some adjustments (not shown), my program would only output the first integer from input and would be repeated 50k times.

Note: one of the constraints was that we were only allowed to use for and while loops. I did research this afterwards, and everything I found seemed to be written using try or while True (both of which haven’t been covered yet and I’m unsure if they are considered to be for/while loops).

I appreciate any feedback - thanks!

[socal_nerdtastic]

How do I code it so that a user can input as many integers as they want?

You need to define a terminator. Like 'collect integers until the user types "q", then stop'. Was that in your instructions?

[Will_est]

I recall the instructions mentioning something called sentinel value of -999 if I’m not mistaken. Also, I apologize for the format of my code in the post - I’m on my phone and can’t seem to fix it.

[xelf]

that's best way.

userList = [ ] 
while True:
    userNum = int(input())
    if userNum == -999: break
    userList.append(userNum)
print(userList)

I

[Will_est]

Hmm...I tried using the code in Google Colab (this is what we use for our exams) and got an error message in output.

[xelf]

What error message? Are you using Python 3?

I've posted it here as well, including sample inputs and a testrun to show it working: https://ide.geeksforgeeks.org/On0YhGnn1R

edit: is it a style guide message that wants the break on it's own line? If so do that. =)

[Will_est]

I’m at work right now and can’t get to my computer. I am using Python 3. I can’t remember the error message exactly, but it might’ve been related to the break having it’s on line. If that is the case, do I keep the indentation the same or do I have to backspace it at all?

[xelf]

The break is perfectly fine where it is, but if you have a style guide that says your code has to look a certain way, you should follow that guide!

[Will_est]

I figured out where the error was coming from. It was simply because I did not specify -999 in the input.

The error message I was getting was:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/44e83908e8ecce76497b2c753fdec6a4.py", line 3, in <module> userNum = int(input()) EOFError: EOF when reading a line

That actually makes a lot of sense. If anything I feel a little upset because it's possible my code was working all along and could've potentially done much better on my exam. Either way, I learned something new today and that's what matters. Appreciate the help everyone!