Getting User Input

You've got some coding skills under your belt now, but the code is a bit one sided. 0:00 You print messages in the console, and 0:06 then the user viewing them just kind of sits there and reads. 0:09 A lot of great apps and websites are great because users get to interact with them. 0:13 Let's update our code to get the users involved. 0:20 And at the top of the file, we're going to add an input function. 0:23 It looks like this, input, open parentheses, close parentheses. 0:29 This function prompts the user. 0:36 Let's save if you haven't already and run the file. 0:39 See how your console cursor is blinking here and the print messages are missing. 0:49 The program is waiting for your response to the prompt 0:57 until you respond, the rest of the program is on hold. 1:01 The only issue, what are you responding to? 1:07 We'll need to fix that. 1:11 So, the user knows what we want. 1:12 Go ahead and type in anything you want and then hit Enter. 1:15 Now the rest of our messages are printed out and 1:17 the program is complete. 1:22 Inside of our input function, 1:27 you can add a message to let the user know what you're prompting them to do. 1:28 Let's add the string. 1:33 What is your name? 1:35 Save and run the file. 1:45 Up arrow, Enter. 1:49 Great, now users will have a message to inform them of what they should 1:52 input here. 1:57 One small design issue though, when you start typing, 1:58 it starts right at the end of the message. 2:02 We can fix this by adding a space or two to our string inside of the input. 2:05 Type a name and hit Enter and let's make that change, 2:11 add a space, save and rerun the file. 2:17 There we go. 2:25 All of this is great. 2:29 But to make this program truly interactive, 2:31 we should use the name the user inputs in our print messages. 2:34 You can capture the message the user enters by setting this function. 2:38 Equal to a variable. 2:43 Let's delete the name string here. 2:48 And place input there instead. 2:54 I also don't need these extra lines and save 3:00 This will run the input function asking the user to enter their name and 3:06 then save the result to this variable. 3:11 Then our print statement here at the bottom will use the name that 3:16 they gave us when it prints out the name. 3:20 Save and run the file. 3:24 Now the messages are my name and Megan. 3:27 But it's kind of hard to tell that we made a change. 3:34 So, let me try a different name. 3:36 My name is Anne Claire. 3:41 Wonderful, let's practice this some more by creating a small conversation. 3:46 Let's ask them what their last name is. 3:51 If you wanna challenge, you can pause me and 3:55 try creating a variable and input pairing to ask what their last name is. 3:58 It should look similar to our name input here. 4:03 Unpause me when you're finished or if you get stuck. 4:07 Okay, I'm going to use last, underscore, 4:13 name as the variable name to be descriptive. 4:16 In Python when you have a long variable name, you connect them with underscores. 4:20 This is called snake case. 4:25 Last name is equal to input, parentheses, quotation marks and parentheses, 4:29 what is your last name, question mark, space and save. 4:36 Now I'm going to create some new print statements 4:41 to show the user we've received their last name. 4:46 So, we'll have print, My name is, print, name, print, last name. 4:53 Save and run the file. 4:58 Input any first name and last name that you want. 5:09 And wonderful, your program works. 5:17 My name is Grace Hopper. 5:20 Take some time to practice creating inputs of your own, 5:22 save the result to a variable and print things out. 5:25 The best way to solidify knowledge is to practice. 5:29 Keep up the excellent work. 5:33

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