SyntaxError: multiple statements found while compiling a single statement

[Steve D'Aprano]

On Sat, 8 Oct 2016 05:29 pm, Cai Gengyang wrote:

> Unfortunately, in this case, it is 100% of the information I am giving
> you. 

Exactly. That's the problem. You need to give us more information, like how
you are trying to run this code. Are you using an IDE? Which IDE?


> You can try it yourself. The code is in the first section (8.1) of 
> 
>
http://programarcadegames.com/index.php?chapter=introduction_to_animation&lang=en#section_8
> 
> Just copy and paste it into your Python IDLE and let me know what you get


I don't normally use IDLE, and you shouldn't assume that everyone does.
*That* is the extra information we need to solve the problem:

The IDLE interactive interpreter in Python 3 does not seem to allow you to
paste multiple lines at once. If you do, it highlights the first line of
code with a red background and prints the error:

SyntaxError: multiple statements found while compiling a single statement



For example:


Python 3.3.0rc3 (default, Sep 27 2012, 18:44:58) 
[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-52)] on linux
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information.
>>> # Define some colors
BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)
GREEN = (0, 255, 0)
RED = (255, 0, 0)
SyntaxError: multiple statements found while compiling a single statement
>>> 



I can't show the colour highlighting, but the line BLACK = ... is
highlighted in red.


You can either copy and paste one line at a time, or you can use the File >
Open menu command to open a complete script.






-- 
Steve
“Cheer up,” they said, “things could be worse.” So I cheered up, and sure
enough, things got worse.