Unable to retrieve variable assigned in function

Question

I am writing a function where it gets input from the user and sets the variable answer to the answer the user gives. I am printing answer outside of the function, but for some reason, it doesn’t print anything.

answer = " "   # set empty in the start
def ask(question):
    answer = input(question) # sets the answer to the user's input
ask("how are you ")
print(answer)  # ends up printing nothing.

Asked By: Mintvbz

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Source

Answer 1

answer inside ask() creates a fresh variable called answer; it does not refer to the variable declared above ask().

The cleanest way to resolve this is to return the user’s input from ask() and then directly assign it to answer. (You could also use the global keyword, but that’s generally considered bad practice.)

def ask(question):
    return input(question)
answer = ask("how are you ")
print(answer)

Answered By: BrokenBenchmark

Answer 2

You must print answer:

inside of ask function,
or
return answer, catch it and then print it

answer = " "   # set empty in the start
def ask(question):
    answer = input(question)
    return answer
    
answer = ask("how are you ")
print(answer)

or one line:

print(ask("how are you "))

Answered By: Marcel Suleiman

Unable to retrieve variable assigned in function

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