3.7. User Inputs

Python provides a convenient mechanism for accepting all inputs given by the user via the raw_input command, which interprets all inputs as a string value. For example:

>>> name = raw_input("Welcome to CS 323! To get started, please enter your name: ")
Welcome to CS 323! To get started, please enter your name: John
>>> print 'Hi %s!'%name
Hi John!

Note

If you are using Python 3, then you should use the input command instead of the raw_input command described above, which has the same syntax. The raw_input command is valid for Python 2.7. While there is an input command in Python 2.7 as well, it interprets the user input as Python code and tries to execute it.

As mentioned above, the output of the raw_input command is a string value. Quite often, we wish to ask for an integer or floating-point value from the user. In this case, the output should be explicitly type casted into the desired format, as shown below:

>>> value = raw_input("Please enter your score from Homework 1: ")
Please enter your score from Homework 1: 90
>>> score = int(value)
>>> print score
90
>>> value = raw_input("Which version of Python are you using? ")
Which version of Python are you using? 2.7
>>> version = float(value)
>>> print version
2.7