1.6 Error messages

Learning objectives

By the end of this section you should be able to

• Identify the error type and line number in error messages.
• Correct syntax errors, name errors, and indentation errors.

How to read errors

A natural part of programming is making mistakes. Even experienced programmers make mistakes when writing code. Errors may result when mistakes are made when writing code. The computer requires very specific instructions telling the computer what to do. If the instructions are not clear, then the computer does not know what to do and gives back an error.

When an error occurs, Python displays a message with the following information:

1. The line number of the error.
2. The type of error (Ex: SyntaxError).
3. Additional details about the error.

Ex: Typing print "Hello!" without parentheses is a syntax error. In Python, parentheses are required to use print. When attempting to run print "Hello!", Python displays the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/student/Desktop/example.py", line 1
    print "Hello"
                ^
SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print("Hello")?

The caret character (^) shows where Python found the error. Sometimes the error may be located one or two lines before where the caret symbol is shown because Python may not have discovered the error until then. Traceback is a Python report of the location and type of error. The word traceback suggests a programmer trace back in the code to find the error if the error is not seen right away.

Learning to read error messages carefully is an important skill. The amount of technical jargon can be overwhelming at first. But this information can be very helpful.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/student/Desktop/example.py", line 2
    print "test"
        ^
SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print("test")?

Common types of errors

Different types of errors may occur when running Python programs. When an error occurs, knowing the type of error gives insight about how to correct the error. The following table shows examples of mistakes that anyone could make when programming.

SyntaxError: unexpected EOF while parsing

SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

NameError: name 'wird' is not defined

NameError: name 'prints' is not defined

  print("Hello")

IndentationError: unexpected indent

    print("Goodbye")

IndentationError: unexpected indent

print("Breakfast options:")
 print("A. Cereal")
 print("B. Eggs")
 print("C. Yogurt")
choice = input("What would you like? ")

birth = input("Enter your birth date: )
print("Happy birthday on ", birth)

print("Breakfast options:")
print(" A. Cereal")
print(" B. Eggs")
print(" C. Yogurt")
choice = intput("What would you like? ")