I am writing a program that accepts an input from the user.
#note: Python 2.7 users should use `raw_input`, the equivalent of 3.X's `input`
age = int(input("Please enter your age: "))
if age >= 18:
print("You are able to vote in the United States!")
else:
print("You are not able to vote in the United States.")
The program works as expected as long as the the user enters meaningful data.
C:\Python\Projects> canyouvote.py
Please enter your age: 23
You are able to vote in the United States!
But it fails if the user enters invalid data:
C:\Python\Projects> canyouvote.py
Please enter your age: dickety six
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "canyouvote.py", line 1, in <module>
age = int(input("Please enter your age: "))
ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: 'dickety six'
Instead of crashing, I would like the program to ask for the input again. Like this:
C:\Python\Projects> canyouvote.py
Please enter your age: dickety six
Sorry, I didn't understand that.
Please enter your age: 26
You are able to vote in the United States!
How can I make the program ask for valid inputs instead of crashing when non-sensical data is entered?
How can I reject values like -1
, which is a valid int
, but nonsensical in this context?
The simplest way to accomplish this is to put the input
method in a while loop. Use continue
when you get bad input, and break
out of the loop when you're satisfied.
Use try
and except
to detect when the user enters data that can't be parsed.
while True:
try:
# Note: Python 2.x users should use raw_input, the equivalent of 3.x's input
age = int(input("Please enter your age: "))
except ValueError:
print("Sorry, I didn't understand that.")
#better try again... Return to the start of the loop
continue
else:
#age was successfully parsed!
#we're ready to exit the loop.
break
if age >= 18:
print("You are able to vote in the United States!")
else:
print("You are not able to vote in the United States.")
If you want to reject values that Python can successfully parse, you can add your own validation logic.
while True:
data = input("Please enter a loud message (must be all caps): ")
if not data.isupper():
print("Sorry, your response was not loud enough.")
continue
else:
#we're happy with the value given.
#we're ready to exit the loop.
break
while True:
data = input("Pick an answer from A to D:")
if data.lower() not in ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'):
print("Not an appropriate choice.")
else:
break
Both of the above techniques can be combined into one loop.
while True:
try:
age = int(input("Please enter your age: "))
except ValueError:
print("Sorry, I didn't understand that.")
continue
if age < 0:
print("Sorry, your response must not be negative.")
continue
else:
#age was successfully parsed, and we're happy with its value.
#we're ready to exit the loop.
break
if age >= 18:
print("You are able to vote in the United States!")
else:
print("You are not able to vote in the United States.")
If you need to ask your user for a lot of different values, it might be useful to put this code in a function, so you don't have to retype it every time.
def get_non_negative_int(prompt):
while True:
try:
value = int(input(prompt))
except ValueError:
print("Sorry, I didn't understand that.")
continue
if value < 0:
print("Sorry, your response must not be negative.")
continue
else:
break
return value
age = get_non_negative_int("Please enter your age: ")
kids = get_non_negative_int("Please enter the number of children you have: ")
salary = get_non_negative_int("Please enter your yearly earnings, in dollars: ")
You can extend this idea to make a very generic input function:
def sanitised_input(prompt, type_=None, min_=None, max_=None, range_=None):
if min_ is not None and max_ is not None and max_ < min_:
raise ValueError("min_ must be less than or equal to max_.")
while True:
ui = input(prompt)
if type_ is not None:
try:
ui = type_(ui)
except ValueError:
print("Input type must be {0}.".format(type_.__name__))
continue
if max_ is not None and ui > max_:
print("Input must be less than or equal to {0}.".format(max_))
elif min_ is not None and ui < min_:
print("Input must be greater than or equal to {0}.".format(min_))
elif range_ is not None and ui not in range_:
if isinstance(range_, range):
template = "Input must be between {0.start} and {0.stop}."
print(template.format(range_))
else:
template = "Input must be {0}."
if len(range_) == 1:
print(template.format(*range_))
else:
expected = " or ".join((
", ".join(str(x) for x in range_[:-1]),
str(range_[-1])
))
print(template.format(expected))
else:
return ui
With usage such as:
age = sanitised_input("Enter your age: ", int, 1, 101)
answer = sanitised_input("Enter your answer: ", str.lower, range_=('a', 'b', 'c', 'd'))
input
StatementsThis method works but is generally considered poor style:
data = input("Please enter a loud message (must be all caps): ")
while not data.isupper():
print("Sorry, your response was not loud enough.")
data = input("Please enter a loud message (must be all caps): ")
It might look attractive initially because it's shorter than the while True
method, but it violates the Don't Repeat Yourself principle of software development. This increases the likelihood of bugs in your system. What if you want to backport to 2.7 by changing input
to raw_input
, but accidentally change only the first input
above? It's a SyntaxError
just waiting to happen.
If you've just learned about recursion, you might be tempted to use it in get_non_negative_int
so you can dispose of the while loop.
def get_non_negative_int(prompt):
try:
value = int(input(prompt))
except ValueError:
print("Sorry, I didn't understand that.")
return get_non_negative_int(prompt)
if value < 0:
print("Sorry, your response must not be negative.")
return get_non_negative_int(prompt)
else:
return value
This appears to work fine most of the time, but if the user enters invalid data enough times, the script will terminate with a RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded
. You may think "no fool would make 1000 mistakes in a row", but you're underestimating the ingenuity of fools!