ZeroDivisionError: float division (baby steps)

[Dan Bishop]

calidusdk at hotmail.com (Artemisio) wrote in message news:<6daa8765.0408191133.2f2e22e3 at posting.google.com>...
> I am a non programmer who just started with Python. So far I love it.
> 
> I would appreciate if you could help me fix this error I get taking this
> exercise:
>
> count= 0

As other posters have mentioned, the problem is with your indentation.
 But I can't resist giving advice.

First of all, I recommend starting every file with the line "from
__future__ import division".  You will then no longer need to worry as
much about writing things like

> sum= 0.0

because you'll get the same division results from "sum=0".  (If you
really want integer division, use the // operator.)

> number= 1
> print "Enter 0 to exit the loop"
> 
> while number != 0 :
> 	number= input("Enter a number: ")
> 
>       count= count + 1   # [indentation corrected]
>       sum= sum + number  # [indentation corrected]
> 
> count= count -1

Instead of using sentinel values, it's possible to put the loop
condition in the middle of the loop, like this:

print "Enter 0 to exit the loop"

while True:               # loop "forever"
   number = input("Enter a number: ")
   if number == 0:        # condition for exiting the loop
      break
   count += 1
   sum += number

Note that count no longer needs to be decremented by 1 at the end,
because if you enter 0, it doesn't get incremented.

Also note that assignments of the form x=x+y can be abbreviated as
x+=y, so you don't have to write the left-hand side twice.  The
benefit will be more noticeable for statements like

verboseName[complicated + index + calculation].verboseAttribute += 1

> print "The average is: ", sum / count
> #the error is in the above line

Often, the real error is long before the line that gives you the error
message.

But you might want to modify this line to deal with the situation that
count == 0.

if count == 0:
   print "You didn't enter any numbers!"
else:
   print "The average is: ", sum / count