simple IF ELSE statement not matching arithmetic answer

Question

I'm making a maths test, where if the user puts the correct input i want it to print correct.I have this

answer = (input) ("What is your answer?")
maths = eval(str(num1) + operation + str(num2))


if answer == maths:
    print ('Correct')

else:
    print('Wrong')

However its not working. It doesn't print correct, it just prints wrong whether input is correct or not. cheers aron

Have you tried debugging? You might check the `maths` value, `operation`, ... That is the way you could fix the bug. — Gábor Bakos, Apr 03 '15 at 10:47
Are you sure you are using Python 2 and not Python 3? What does `print(repr(answer))` and `print(repr(maths))` output? — Martijn Pieters, Apr 03 '15 at 10:55
Also, in Python 2 you'd use `raw_input()`, and explicitly convert the output to an integer. — Martijn Pieters, Apr 03 '15 at 10:55
`answer` type is string and `maths` type is int, if you compare then first parse answer value into int type and then compare like: `maths == int(answer)` which will give you `Correct` — Zeb, Apr 03 '15 at 11:29

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:24

input() returns a string value, not an integer. You cannot compare integers and strings and expect them to be equal:

>>> '42' == 42
False

Convert your input to an integer first:

answer = input("What is your answer?")
answer = int(answer)

This can lead to a ValueError exception if the input was not numeric however. See Asking the user for input until they give a valid response for options on how to handle that possibility.

simple IF ELSE statement not matching arithmetic answer

1 Answers1