syntax error - Why am I getting a SyntaxError in the Python interpreter?

Question

This code works when I try it from a .py file, but fails in the command line interpreter and Idle.

>>> try:
...     fsock = open("/bla")
... except IOError:
...     print "Caught"
... print "continue"
  File "<stdin>", line 5
    print "continue"
        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

I'm using python 2.6

Answer 1

With Python 3, print is a function and not a statement, so you would need parentheses around the arguments, as in print("continue"), if you were using Python 3.

The caret, however, is pointing to an earlier position than it would be with Python 3, so you must be using Python 2.x instead. In this case, the error is because you are entering this in the interactive interpreter, and it needs a little "help" to figure out what you are trying to tell it. Enter a blank line after the previous block, so that it can decipher the indentation properly, as in this:

>>> try:
...     fsock = open("/bla")
... except IOError:
...     print "Caught"
...
(some output shows here)
>>> print "continue"