[Tutor] Problem with exponents and square roots

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry]

On 29-Mar-2002 James M Lang wrote:
> I followed everyone's instructions for using square roots and exponents and
> got this.
> 
> Traceback (most recent call last):
>   File "C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\Jimmy's Folder\Python Source\hypotenuse", line 9,
> in ?
>     c = (a**2+b**2)**.5
> TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for ** or pow(): 'str' and 'int'
> 

the answer is right there "unsupport type".  raw_input returns a string, not a
number.

num_a = float(a)
num_b = float(b)
c = (a**2 + b**2)
c = c**.5