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A5 - Input and Variables

In your u1 folder, create a Python file called a5.py. Paste in the following code, and try it out:

first_name = input("What is your first name? ")
last_name = input("What is your last name? ")
print("Hello there", first_name, last_name, "- have a great day!")

This short program contains two variables: first_name and last_name. A variable is a symbol that represents a stored value in the computer. There are two rules to follow when choosing names for variables:

  1. Only letters, numbers, and the _ (underscore) character are allowed
  2. The variable name is not allowed to start with a number

There are also some variable naming conventions in Python that you should follow, even though your program will still work if you ignore them:

  1. Choose variable names that are descriptive of the data you are representing
  2. Avoid capital letters, as they traditionally denote special meaning that we will see later
  3. Since spaces are not permitted, use underscores to separate multiple words such as first_name

The above program also introduces the input function, which collects information from the user. For example, 

first_name = input("What is your first name? ")
It accepts one argument, which is the prompt we are giving the user. Whatever the user types in will get stored in the variable that appears before the equals sign.

Finally, we see a slightly new usage of the print function. For example, 

print("Hello there", first_name, last_name, "- have a great day!")

If you provide the print function with multiple arguments, it will print all of them in a single line, each separated by a space. Notice that we quote strings that we want to print verbatim, and leave variable names unquoted when we want to print the values they're storing.

Creating a Madlib

In the next task, you will create a Madlib in Python. If you don't know a Madlib is, have a look at this website Here is a sample for you to try.:

name = input("Enter a name: ")
animal = input("Enter an animal: ")
colour = input("Enter a colour: ")
noun = input("Enter a noun: ")
print(name, "had a little", animal)
print("whose fleece was", colour, "as", noun+ ".") # (1)!
  1. Notice after noun I used a + rather than a comma. This is one way to avoid having Python insert a space between the noun and the period following it.