Parameter argument not working right (beginner)

Question

Newb question, when I write:

def right_indent(s): print ' '*70+'s' #puts argument after 70 spaces right_indent('michael') s

Why does it return s as a result? Shouldn't it be michael? This seems really simple but I have no idea what I'm doing wrong

Keep in mind 'print' and 'return' are two different things.

agf
– agf

2012-03-18 07:40:46 +00:00
Commented Mar 18, 2012 at 7:40 — agf
– agf, Commented Mar 18, 2012 at 7:40

steveha · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-18 07:36:52Z

2

This is the name of the variable: s

This is what you put instead: 's'

A value enclosed in quotes is a string literal.

answered Mar 18, 2012 at 7:36

steveha

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Comments

octern · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-18 07:35:40Z

There are quote marks around s, so it treats it as a literal string instead of as a variable name. Try:

print ' '*70+s

You might be familiar with PHP, which happily translates variable names even if they're inside quotes. Python doesn't.

mgilson · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-18 20:35:09Z

All of the previous answers are correct. I just thought that it might be important to mention that your function returns None (since it has no return ... statement). (try:

A=right_indent('michael') print A #Prints 'None'

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