NameError with simple code

[DanielBrasher]

Hi, This is my first post on the forum.

I'm currently learning the basics of Python from a 2014 copy of "Idiot's Guides: Beginning Programming". I'm using Python 3.5.3 on Mac OS.

The book is using examples from Python 3.3.

One of the first examples in the book is a simple question and response piece of code (below).

input_var = input("What is your name? ")
print("Hello " + input_var)

I've saved that as a .py file and then gone to Terminal and changed the directory to the folder I have the file saved in.

I then open it up in Terminal and this happens...

python ch3_1.py
What is your name? Daniel
Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "ch3_1.py", line 1, in <module>
          input_var = input("What is your name? ")
     File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'Daniel' is not defined

Why is this happening? I thought it should look something like this...

Output:
python ch3_1.py
What is your name? Daniel
Hello Daniel

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions. Cheers, Dan :)

---

Just quick update. I was playing around with it and for some reason the code works when I type...

python ch3_1.py
What is your name? "Daniel"
Hello Daniel

Is that normal? I thought you didn't need to use quotation marks when responding only in the code?

[wavic]

I can't tell why is this specific error message. But if you do python script_name.py, you run it true Python 2.x and there is no print function but statement.

victor@jerry:/tmp$ python untitled.py 
What is your name? Daniel
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "untitled.py", line 1, in <module>
    input_var = input("What is your name? ")
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'Daniel' is not defined
victor@jerry:/tmp$ python3 untitled.py 
What is your name? Daniel
Hello Daniel

[Larz60+]

Please use code tags see: https://python-forum.io/misc.php?action=help&hid=25

[DanielBrasher]

Thanks Larz60+. I'll use the code tags next time I post on here.

And thanks wavic. I uploaded the script using "python3" instead of just "python" and it seemed to work.

[Ofnuts]

In Python 2, input() considers that what is input is valid python code and tries to run it, so it thinks "Daniel" is a variable. In Python3, input() is just getting a string (in Python2 this would be raw_input()).