invalid syntax (<string>)

Question

# create a mapping of state to abbreviation
states = [
    'Oregon': 'OR',
    'Florida': 'FL',
    'California': 'CA',
    'New York': 'NY',
    'Michigan': 'MI'
    ]

I am learning Python from Learning Python The Hard Way. In example 39 of the book, I typed the same code as shown above for creating a dictionary, even copied and pasted it, but I m getting an error E0001:invalid syntax (<string>, line 3) and it is pointing at :. What went wrong?

ShadowRanger · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-24 04:23:10Z

3

Square brackets ([]) are used for list literals. In this case, you're supposed to be making a dict literal (the : is used to separate the key on the left of the colon from the value on the right), which is delimited by curly braces ({}).

answered Mar 24, 2018 at 4:23

ShadowRanger

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5 Comments

Anki Over a year ago

I changed the ( [ ] ) to ( { } ), it still shows the same error

ShadowRanger Over a year ago

@AnkurSatpute: You either forgot to save after editing, or saved to the wrong file, or made some other mistake not shown in your question. If your code in the question replaced [ with { and ] with } it would be syntactically valid; I can't guess at what other mistakes you might have made.

ShadowRanger Over a year ago

@AnkurSatpute: When you use brackets, the : is illegal, when you use braces, it's legal. SyntaxErrors are raised at the point where the parser gives up, and until you reach the colon, nothing was wrong.

Anki Over a year ago

This is the snapshot of the code given in the book. drive.google.com/file/d/1RXmc_5RPBp-4EVGMQHr7xkBvWwpP20aK/…

ShadowRanger Over a year ago

@AnkurSatpute: Your copy is wrong. Someone else excerpted the code correctly here, as well as here; I can't explain why yours is wrong, and a two year old excerpt is correct.

John Kugelman · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-24 04:27:30Z

2

You want to use curly braces for dictionaries

states = {
    'Oregon'    : 'OR',
    'Florida'   : 'FL',
    'California': 'CA',
    'New York'  : 'NY',
    'Michigan'  : 'MI'
    }

edited Mar 24, 2018 at 4:27

John Kugelman

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answered Mar 24, 2018 at 4:25

Ethan

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3 Comments

Anki Over a year ago

I changed it to { }, but it still shows the same error pointing at ' : '

Ethan Over a year ago

Copy and paste the code into your python interpreter, and it should work. Check your file for hidden characters or tabs.

Anki Over a year ago

This is the snapshot of the code in the book drive.google.com/file/d/1RXmc_5RPBp-4EVGMQHr7xkBvWwpP20aK/…

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