Newbie Problem

[rbl at hal.cwru.edu]

I'm new to Python, but quite excited about its possiblities.  I'm
running on a Mac G3, System 8.6.

There is some Python code I've downloaded that I'm trying to run.
If I just drop the .py file on the Python icon, I get some errors,
so I am trying to run it interactively for debugging.

Here is what happened:

Python 1.5.1 (#37, Apr 27 1998, 13:36:04)  [CW PPC w/GUSI w/MSL]
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> import sys
>>> import random
>>> import string
>>> 
>>> def run(filename=''):
... if filename=='':
  File "<stdin>", line 2
    if filename=='':
     ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> 

The original code segment is:

import sys
import random
import string

def run(filename=''):
	if filename=='':
		file = open( raw_input('Enter name of a textfile to read: '), 'r')
	else:
		file = open( filename, 'r')
	
	text = file.read()
	file.close()
	words = string.split(text)

===
I must be doing something stupid and/or naive.

Advice, please?

Thank you,
Robin Lake
rbl at po.cwru.edu