Question

[oliver]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2017, 17:33 Sonja Williams via Python-list, <
python-list at python.org> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Good Day,
>
> I have decided to learn more about programming so I picked up the book
> Beginning Programming by Matt Telles.  After following the directions
> verbatim and going to the Python site to download the latest version 3,
> which is what the book recommended, I keep getting the following error
> message when running my first script. I am using Windows 7 - 64 bit
>
> " python is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable
> program, or batch file".
>
>
> I am at the end of chapter 3 attempting to run the following script.
>
> python ch3_1.py  which should return What is your name?
>
>
> What am I doing wrong?
>

The window in which you are typing the command to run the script is called
a "shell". The error you are getting means the shell does not have a
built-in command (like cd or dir or help) called "python", nor can it
find "python.bat" or "python.exe" in any of the folders known to it. To
check which folders are known to the shell, type "path" in it; the
semicolon-separated list of folders that this prints will likely be missing
the Python folder.

I presume you installed python 3.6? There is an option to add the Python
folder to path as part of the installation, so you might want to uninstall
python, then re-run the installer this time paying close attention to this
configuration option. For example in Python 3.5 installer the option is
called "Add Python 3.5 to path", see the first snapshot at
https://docs.python.org/3/using/windows.html.

With this option in effect, the output from the "path" command will include
the Python folder. So when you type "python ch3.py" the shell will see a
python.exe in Python folder and run it and all will work!

Oliver


>
>
>
>
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> Sonja Williams
> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>
-- 
Oliver
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