python docstrings

Question

ok so I decided to learn python (perl, c, c++, java, objective-c, ruby and a bit of erlang and scala under my belt). and I keep on getting the following error when I try executing this:

Tue Jul 21{stevenhirsch@steven-hirschs-macbook-pro-2}/projects/python:-->./apache_logs.py 
  File "./apache_logs.py", line 17
    print __doc__
                ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax



#!/usr/local/bin/python
"""

USAGE:

    apache_logs.py 

"""

import sys
import os


if __name__ == "__main__":
    if not len(sys.argv) > 1:
        print __doc__
        sys.exit(1)
    infile_name = sys.argv[1]

I know it must be something really stupid but I've googled and read the documentation without finding anything. The docs all seem to state that what I've coded should work.

Many thanks in advance for your help!!

Answer 1

What version of Python do you have? In Python 3, print was changed to work like a function rather than a statement, i.e. print('Hello World') instead of print 'Hello World'

I can recommend you to keep using Python 2.6 unless you're doing some brand new production development. Python 3 is still pretty new.