variable naming

[kaiser]

BPO	24003
Nosy	@ned-deily, @stevendaprano
Files	bugs.py

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

Show more details

GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2015-04-19.10:10:19.207>
created_at = <Date 2015-04-19.09:43:09.498>
labels = ['type-bug', 'invalid']
title = 'variable naming'
updated_at = <Date 2015-04-19.19:21:52.304>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/kaiser'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2015-04-19.19:21:52.304>
actor = 'ned.deily'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2015-04-19.10:10:19.207>
closer = 'steven.daprano'
components = []
creation = <Date 2015-04-19.09:43:09.498>
creator = 'kaiser'
dependencies = []
files = ['39117']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 24003
keywords = []
message_count = 3.0
messages = ['241502', '241505', '241549']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['ned.deily', 'steven.daprano', 'kaiser']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'not a bug'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue24003'
versions = ['Python 2.7']

[kaiser]

found error when naming variables with basic functions

how to replicate

while=123 #while should be treated as variable name
while True: #this should be treated as a function
	print while #this should be as a variable name

result:
File "C:\Users\you got served\Desktop\bugs.py", line 1
while = 123
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

[stevendaprano]

This is not a bug. "while" is a keyword, it is part of Python's syntax, and you are not permitted to use keywords as variable names. This is not an accident, but a deliberate decision.

[ned-deily]

(... and is documented in The Python 3 and 2 Language Reference manuals: https://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#keywords and https://docs.python.org/2/reference/lexical_analysis.html#keywords)