Python Input: Take Input

from User
In Python, Using the input() function, we take input from a
user, and using the print() function, we display output on
the screen. Using the input() function, users can give any
information to the application in the strings or numbers
format.

After reading this article, you will learn:

 Input and output in Python

 How to get input from the user, files, and display
output on the screen, console, or write it into the
file.
 Take integer, float, character, and string input from a
user.
 Convert the user input to a different data type.
 Command-line input
 How to format output.
Also, Solve

 Python Input and Output Exercise

 Python Input and Output Quiz

Table of contents
 Python Input() function

 What is the input?

 Python Example to Accept Input From a User
 How input() Function Works
 Take an Integer Number as input from User
 Take Float Number as a Input from User
 Practice Problem
 Get Multiple inputs From a User in One Line
  Accept Multiline input From a User
 Python Input() vs raw_input()
 Command Line input
 Python sys module
 Output in Python
 Output Formatting
 [Link]() to format output
 Format Output String by its positions
 Accessing Output String Arguments by name
 Output Alignment by Specifying a Width
 Specifying a Sign While Displaying Output Numbers
 Display Output Number in Various Format

 Display Numbers as a float type

 Output String Alignment
 Next Steps

Python Input() function

In Python 3, we have the following two built-in functions to
handle input from a user and system.

1. input(prompt): To accept input from a user.

2. print(): To display output on the console/screen.

In Python 2,we can use the following two functions:

1. input([prompt])
2. raw_input([prompt])

The input() function reads a line entered on a console or

screen by an input device such as a keyboard, converts it
into a string. As a new developer, It is essential to
understand what is input in Python.

What is the input?

The input is a value provided by the system or user. For
example, suppose you want to calculate the addition of two
numbers on the calculator, you need to provide two numbers
to the calculator. In that case, those two number is nothing
but an input provided by the user to a calculator program.

There are different types of input devices we can use to

provide data to application. For example: –

 Stems from the keyboard: User entered some value using a

keyboard.
 Using mouse click or movement: The user clicked on the
radio button or some drop-down list and chosen an option
from it using mouse.
In Python, there are various ways for reading input from the
user from the command line environment or through the user
interface. In both cases, the user is sending information
using the keyboard or mouse.

Python Example to Accept Input From a User

Let see how to accept employee information from a user.

 First, ask employee name, salary, and company name from

the user
 Next, we will assign the input provided by the user to
the variables
  Finally, we will use the print() function to display
those variables on the screen.

# take three values from user

name = input("Enter Employee Name: ")
salary = input("Enter salary: ")
company = input("Enter Company name: ")

# Display all values on screen

print("\n")
print("Printing Employee Details")
print("Name", "Salary", "Company")
print(name, salary, company)

Run
Output:

Enter Employee Name: Jessa

Enter salary: 8000

Enter Company name: Google

Printing Employee Details

Name Salary Company

Jessa 8000 Google

How input() Function Works

syntax

input([prompt])

 The prompt argument is optional. The prompt argument is

used to display a message to the user. For example, the
prompt is, “Please enter your name.”
 When the input() function executes, the program waits
until a user enters some value.
  Next, the user enters some value on the screen using a
keyboard.
 Finally, The input() function reads a value from the
screen, converts it into a string, and returns it to the
calling program.
Note: If you enter an integer or float number, still, it
will convert it into a string. If you want to number input
or input in other data types, you need to perform type
conversion on the input value.

Let’s understand this with an example.

Example to check data type of input value

number = input("Enter roll number ")

name = input("Enter age ")

print("\n")
print('Roll number:', number, 'Name:', name)
print("Printing type of a input values")
print("type of number", type(number))
print("type of name", type(name))

Run
Output:

Enter roll number 22

Enter age Jessa

Roll number: 22 Name: Jessa

Printing type of a input values

type of number <class 'str'>

type of name <class 'str'>

As you know whatever you enter as input, the input() function

always converts it into a string.
Read How to check if user input is a number or string.

Take an Integer Number as input from User

Let’s see how to accept an integer value from a user in
Python. We need to convert an input string value into an
integer using an int() function.

Example:

# program to calculate addition of two input integer numbers

# convert inout into int

first_number = int(input("Enter first number "))
second_number = int(input("Enter second number "))

print("\n")
print("First Number:", first_number)
print("Second Number:", second_number)
sum1 = first_number + second_number
print("Addition of two number is: ", sum1)

Run
Output:

Enter first number 28

Enter second number 12

First Number: 28

Second Number: 12

Addition of two number is: 40

Note: As you can see, we explicitly added a cast of an

integer type to an input function to convert an input value
to the integer type.

Now if you print the type of first_number you should get

integer type. type(first_number ) will return <class 'int'>
Take Float Number as a Input from User
Same as integer, we need to convert user input to the float
number using the float() function

marks = float(input("Enter marks "))

print("\n")
print("Student marks is: ", marks)
print("type is:", type(marks))

Run
Output:

Enter marks 74.65

Student marks is: 74.65

type is: <class 'float'>

Practice Problem
Accept one integer and one float number from the user and
calculate the multiplication of both the numbers.

Show Solution

Get Multiple inputs From a User in One Line

In Python, It is possible to get multiple values from the
user in one line. We can accept two or three values from the
user.

For example, in a single execution of the input() function,

we can ask the user his/her name, age, and phone number and
store it in three different variables.

Let’ see how to do this.

  Take each input separated by space
 Split input string using split() get the value of
individual input

name, age, marks = input("Enter your Name, Age, Percentage separated by space
").split()
print("\n")
print("User Details: ", name, age, marks)

Run
Output:

Enter your name, Age, Percentage separated by space Jessa 18 72.50

User Details: Jessa 18 72.50

Also, you can take the list as input from the user to get
and store multiple values at a time.

Read: How to take a list as an input from a user.

Accept Multiline input From a User

As you know, the input() function does not allow the user to
provide values separated by a new line.

If the user tries to enter multiline input, it reads only

the first line. Because whenever the user presses the enter
key, the input function reads information provided by the
user and stops execution.

Let’s see how to gets multiple line input.

We can use a loop. In each iteration of the loop, we can get

input strings from the user and join them. You can also
concatenate each input string using the + operator separated
by newline (\n).

Example:
# list to store multi line input
# press enter two times to exit
data = []
print("Tell me about yourself")
while True:
line = input()
if line:
[Link](line)
else:
break
finalText = '\n'.join(data)
print("\n")
print("Final text input")
print(finalText)

Output:

Tell me about yourself

My Name is Jessa

I am a software engineer

Final text input

My Name is Jessa

I am a software engineer

Python Input() vs raw_input()

 The input() function works differently between Python 3
and Python 2.
 In Python 2, we can use both
the input() and raw_input() function to accept user input.
 In Python 3, the raw_input() function of Python 2 is
renamed to input() and the original input() function is
removed.
The difference between the input() and raw_input() functions is
relevant only when using Python 2.
  The main difference between those two functions
is input() function automatically converts user input to
the appropriate type. i.e., If a user-entered string
input() function converts it into a string, and if a
user entered a number, it converts to an integer.
 The raw_input() convert every user input to a string.
Let’s see how to use raw_input() in Python 2.

Example 1: Python 2 raw_input() function to take input from a

user

# Python 2 code
# raw_input() function
name = raw_input("Enter your name ")
print "Student Name is: ", name
print type(name)

age = raw_input("Enter your age ")

print "Student age is: ", age
print type(age)

Output:

Enter your name Jessa

Student Name is: Jessa

<type 'str'>

Enter your age 18

Student age is: 18

<type 'str'>

Note: As you can see, raw_input() converted all user values

to string type.

Example 2: Python 2 input() function to take input from a

user
# Python 2 code
# input() function

name = input("Enter your Name ")

print "Student Name is: ", name
print type(name)

age = input("Enter your age ")

print "Student age is: ", age
print type(age)

Output:

Enter your Name Jessa

Student Name is: Jessa

<type 'str'>

Enter your age 18

Student age is: 18

<type 'int'>

Note: As you can see, input() converted all user values to

appropriate data type.

Note: To get the this behavior of input() in Python 3,

use eval(input('Enter Value'))

Command Line input

A command line interface (CLI) is a command screen or text
interface called a shell that allows users to interact with
a program.

For example, On windows, we use the Command

Prompt and Bash on Linux. command line or command-line
interface is a text-based application for viewing, handling,
and manipulating files on our computer. The command line
also called cmd, CLI, prompt, console, or terminal.

On command-line, we execute program or command by providing

input/arguments to it. Also, output and error are displayed
A command line.

We can run Python programs on the command line. The command

line input is an argument that we pass to the program at
runtime.

Python provides following modules to work with command-line

arguments.

1. sys module
2. getoptm odule
3. argsparse module
4. fire module
5. docotp module

Python sys module

The Python sys module is the basic module that implements
command-line arguments in a simple list structure
named [Link].

 [Link][0]:
The first argument is always the
program/script name.
 [Link]: Returns the list of command line arguments.
 len([Link]): Count of command line arguments.
Steps:

Write the below code in a file and save it as a [Link]

from sys import argv

print("Total argument passed :", len(argv))

Run the below command on the command line

python [Link] 20 30 40

Output

Total argument passed : 4

Here 10, 20, 30 are command-line arguments passed to the

program. Each input represents a single argument.

 The first argument, i.e., [Link][0], always represents

the Python program name (.py) file
 The other list elements i.e., [Link][1] to [Link][n] are
command-line arguments. Space is used to separate each
argument.
Note: argv is not an array. It is a list. This is a
straightforward way to read command-line arguments as a
string. See the following example to check the type of argv

Example

from sys import argv

print(type(argv))
# Output <class 'list'>

Now let’s see another example where we display all command-

line arguments passed to the program.

Example : To Display command line argumnets

from sys import argv

print("All command line inputs")

for value in argv:
print(value)

Run the below command on the command line

python [Link] 20 30 40

Output

C:\Anaconda3>python [Link] 20 30 40

All command line inputs

[Link]

20

30

40

Note : The space is separator between command line

arguments.

In Python, by default, command-line arguments are available

in string format. Based on our requirement, we can convert
it into the corresponding type by using
the typecasting method.

See the following example where we change the data type of

arguments using the int() method.

Example

from sys import argv

# calculate the addition of two command line input

print('Argument one:')
print('Argument Two:')
add = int(argv[1]) + int(argv[2])
print('Addition is:', add)

Output

C:\Anaconda3>python [Link] 20 30
Argument one:

Argument Two:

Addition is: 50

If we try to access arguments with out of the range index on

the command line, we will get an error.

from sys import argv

print(argv[2])
print(argv[3])

Output

C:\Anaconda3>python [Link] 20

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "[Link]", line 3, in <module>

print(argv[2])

IndexError: list index out of range

Output in Python
Python has a built-in print() function to display output to
the standard output device like screen and console.

Example 1: Display output on screen

# take input
name = input("Enter Name: ")

# Display output
print('User Name:', name)

Run
Output:

Enter Name: Jessa

User Name: Jessa

Example 2: Display Output by separating each value

name = input('Enter Name ')

zip_code = int(input('Enter zip code '))
street = input('Enter street name ')
house_number = int(input('Enter house number '))

# Display all values separated by hyphen

print(name, zip_code, street, house_number, sep="-")

Run
Output:

name = input('Enter Name ')

Enter Name Jessa

Enter zip code 412365

Enter street name abc street

Enter house number 234

Jessa-412365-abc street-234

Output Formatting
Most of the time, we need to format output instead of merely
printing space-separated values. For example, we want to
display the string left-justified or in the center. We want
to show the number in various formats.
You can display output in various styles and formats using
the following functions.

 [Link]()
 repr()
 [Link](), [Link]() , and [Link]().
 [Link]()
 The % operator can also use for output formatting
Now, Let see each one by one.

[Link]() to format output

[Link](*args, **kwargs)

 The str is the string on which the format method is

called. It can contain text or replacement fields
delimited by braces {}.
 Each replacement field contains either the numeric index
of a positional argument present in the format method or
the name of a keyword argument.
 The format method returns a formatted string as an
output. Each replacement field gets replaced with the
actual string value of the corresponding argument
present in the format method. i.e., args.
Let see this with an example:

print('FirstName - {0}, LastName - {1}'.format('Ault', 'Kelly'))

Run
Note: Here {0} and {1} is the numeric index of a positional
argument present in the format method. i.e., {0} = Ault and
{1} = Kelly. Anything that not enclosed in braces {} is
considered a plain literal text.
Python output formatting options
Let see different ways to display output using
a format() method. You can find various Formatting options
here.

Format Output String by its positions

firstName = input("Enter First Name ")

lastName = input("Enter Last Name ")
organization = input("Enter Organization Name ")

print("\n")
print('{0}, {1} works at {2}'.format(firstName, lastName, organization))
print('{1}, {0} works at {2}'.format(firstName, lastName, organization))
print('FirstName {0}, LastName {1} works at {2}'.format(firstName, lastName,
organization))
print('{0}, {1} {0}, {1} works at {2}'.format(firstName, lastName,
organization))

Run
Output:

Enter First Name Ault

Enter Last Name Kelly

Enter Organization Name Google

Ault, Kelly works at Google

Kelly, Ault works at Google

FirstName Ault, LastName Kelly works at Google

Ault, Kelly Ault, Kelly works at Google

Accessing Output String Arguments by name

name = input("Enter Name ")

marks = input("Enter marks ")

print("\n")
print('Student: Name: {firstName}, Marks: {percentage}
%'.format(firstName=name, percentage=marks))

Run
Output:

Enter Name Jhon

Enter marks 74

Student: Name: Jhon, Marks: 74%

Output Alignment by Specifying a Width

text = input("Enter text ")

print("\n")
# left aligned
print('{:<25}'.format(text)) # Right aligned print('{:>25}'.format(text))
# centered
print('{:^25}'.format(text))

Run
Output:

Enter text This is a sample text

This is a sample text

This is a sample text

This is a sample text

Specifying a Sign While Displaying Output

Numbers

positive_number = float(input("Enter Positive Number "))

negative_number = float(input("Enter Negative Number "))

print("\n")
# sign '+' is for both positive and negative number
print('{:+f}; {:+f}'.format(positive_number, negative_number))

# sign '-' is only for negative number

print('{:f}; {:-f}'.format(positive_number, negative_number))

Run
Output:

Enter Positive Number 25.25

Enter Negative Number -15.50

+25.250000; -15.500000

25.250000; -15.500000

Display Output Number in Various Format

number = int(input("Enter number "))

print("\n")
# 'd' is for integer number formatting
print("The number is:{:d}".format(number))

# 'o' is for octal number formatting, binary and hexadecimal format

print('Output number in octal format : {0:o}'.format(number))

# 'b' is for binary number formatting

print('Output number in binary format: {0:b}'.format(number))

# 'x' is for hexadecimal format

print('Output number in hexadecimal format: {0:x}'.format(number))

# 'X' is for hexadecimal format

print('Output number in HEXADECIMAL: {0:X}'.format(number))

Run
Output:

Enter number 356

The number is:356

Output number in octal format : 544

Output number in binary format: 101100100

Output number in hexadecimal format: 164

Output number in HEXADECIMAL: 164

Display Numbers as a float type

number = float(input("Enter float Number "))

print("\n")
# 'f' is for float number arguments
print("Output Number in The float type :{:f}".format(number))

# padding for float numbers

print('padding for output float number{:5.2f}'.format(number))

# 'e' is for Exponent notation

print('Output Exponent notation{:e}'.format(number))

# 'E' is for Exponent notation in UPPER CASE

print('Output Exponent notation{:E}'.format(number))

Run
Output:

Enter float Number 234.567

Output Number in The float type :234.567000

padding for output float number234.57

Output Exponent notation2.345670e+02

Output Exponent notation2.345670E+02

Output String Alignment

Let’s see how to use [Link](), [Link]() and [Link]() to
justify text output on screen and console.

text = input("Enter String ")

print("\n")
print("Left justification", [Link](60, "*"))
print("Right justification", [Link](60, "*"))
print("Center justification", [Link](60, "*"))