How to use a raw_input value in a line for taking input in python

Question

I want to take input as string as raw_input and want to use this value in another line for taking the input in python. My code is below:

p1 = raw_input('Enter the name of Player 1 :')
p2 = raw_input('Enter the name of Player 2 :')


p1 = input('Welcome %s > Enter your no:') % p1

Here in place of %s I want to put the value of p1.

Thanks in advance.

Move the closing parenthesis to the end of the last line. Voting to close as typo. — Wooble, Apr 05 '14 at 14:57
@Wooble I disagree. I don't think it should be closed as the user was not 'hey, I am getting this error' but 'how can I do this?' The code he posted was just what he had tried so far, which is a good thing to post. — anon582847382, Apr 05 '14 at 15:06
@Wooble, thanks for replying to my question, Really this works just moving the parenthesis. Also alex thorton, your code also works by using .format. Which one should I use ? — hkchakladar, Apr 06 '14 at 09:22
@chakladar http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5082452/python-string-formatting-vs-format — anon582847382, Apr 06 '14 at 10:27

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 05 '14 at 14:55

2

You can do (the vast majority will agree that this is the best way):

p1 = input('Welcome {0} > Enter your no:'.format(p1))

answered Apr 05 '14 at 14:55

anon582847382

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Liam McInroy · Answer 2 · 2014-04-05T15:08:19.503

1

Try

input("Welcome " + p1 + "> Enter your no:")

It concatenates the value of p1 to the input string

Also see here

input("Welcome {0}, {1} > Enter your no".format(p1, p2)) #you can have multiple values

EDIT

Note that using + is discouraged.

edited Apr 05 '14 at 15:08

answered Apr 05 '14 at 14:55

Liam McInroy

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In-place string concatenation with `+` is generally discouraged, see http://legacy.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#programming-recommendations – jonrsharpe Apr 05 '14 at 15:02
@jonrsharpe Interesting... – Liam McInroy Apr 05 '14 at 15:08

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 05 '14 at 14:58

This doesn't work because Python interprets

p1 = input('Welcome %s > Enter your no:') % p1

As:

Get input, using the prompt 'Welcome %s > Enter your no:';
Try to insert p1 into the text returned by input, which will cause a TypeError unless the user's number includes '%s'; and
Assign the result of that formatting back to p1.

The minimal fix here is:

p1 = input('Welcome %s > Enter your no:' % p1)

which will carry out the % formatting before using the string as a prompt, but I agree with the other answers that str.format is the preferred method for this.

How to use a raw_input value in a line for taking input in python

3 Answers3