Please tell me what i did wrong

[gabejohnsonny21]

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sample_list = [8, 2, 3, 0, 7] print("Sample list: %s " % sample_list)   def sum_list(lists):     for x in lists:         total = total + lists[x]     return total         print("Sum of all the number in the list: "), print(sum_list(sample_list))   raw_input("\nPress ENTER to exit")

I was told to create a function that can sum up all the elements in a list and this is what I came up with.
It didn't work
Please help

[ndc85430]

What have you done to debug the program then?

[deanhystad]

I bet there was an error message. Something like this:

Output:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\djhys\Documents\Python\Musings\junk.py", line 11, in <module>
    print(sum_list(sample_list))
  File "C:\Users\djhys\Documents\Python\Musings\junk.py", line 6, in sum_list
    total = total + lists[x]
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'total' referenced before assignment

Given that, you don't need any help debugging. The error was on line 6 of sum_list. THe error type was UnboundLocalError. Additional information was supplied saying 'total" was referenced before assignment.

So what is the value of total before you start summing items from the list?

[gabejohnsonny21]

I did not assign the total variable with any value before the summing begin.
Is that why the error appears?

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Thanks, I got it now