[Idle-dev] IDLE-INTERPRETER

[Beni Cherniavsky]

Tal Einat <taleinat <at> gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 10:06 PM, 
albert steine <albert.steine <at> live.se> wrote:

> > MY OPERATING SYSTEM IS WINDOWS VISTA HOME
> > I HAVE INSTALLED PYTHON 2.6.4
> > WHEN I USE THE KEYWORDS  else or elif  in any programm it results 
> > to Syntax Error-invalid Syntax  
> > have any answer?
> >  thank-you
> >
> Are you placing a colon (":") after each "else" and "elif ..."?
> 
> Are you making sure that the indentation of the "else" and "elif" are
> the same as for the "if" statement, while indenting the inner code
> block further?
> 
In IDLE, the ">>> " prompt should be ignored when indenting, like this:

>>> if condition:
        do_something()
else:                        # <-- correct, although it looks strange
        do_something_else()

If you tried to indent the "else:" to match the "if" like this:

>>> if condition:
        do_something()
    else:
        do_something_else()

or this:

>>> if condition:
        do_something()
        else:
        do_something_else()

you'll get and error because the "if" is actually in column 0 
(remember, you should imagine the ">>> " isn't there!) while the 
"else:" is in column 4 or 8.

Pressing Backspace before the "else:" should fix the indentation.

Hope this helps.
-- 
Beni Cherniavsky <cben at users.sf.net>