improve a Python error message

beliavsky at aol.com beliavsky at aol.com
Thu Apr 8 15:13:07 EDT 2004


The Python code

x = (1,2
print x

gives an error message 

  File "err.py", line 2
    print x
        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

The real error is on line 1, but I guess the error is attributed to
line 2 because the code would be legal if the 2nd line were (for
example) a closing parenthesis. I wonder if the error message Python
produces could be improved. It is technically correct but could
confuse a beginner. Perhaps the message could be

SyntaxError: invalid syntax (missing closing parenthesis on previous
line?)



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