There are hardly any programs without any input. Input can come in various ways, for example from a database, another computer, mouse clicks and movements or from the internet. Yet, in most cases the input stems from the keyboard. For this purpose, Python provides the function input(). input has an optional parameter, which is the prompt string.

If the input function is called, the program flow will be stopped until the user has given an input and has ended the input with the return key. The text of the optional parameter, i.e. the prompt, will be printed on the screen.

The input of the user will be interpreted. If the user e.g. puts in an integer value, the input function returns this integer value. If the user on the other hand inputs a list, the function will return a list.

Let’s have a look at the following example:

name = input("What's your name? ")
print("Nice to meet you " + name + "!")
age = input("Your age? ")
print("So, you are are already " + str(age) + " years old, " + name + "!")

We save the program as “input_test.py” and run it: Continue reading Input from Keyboard →