5 An Informal Introduction to Python

In the following examples, input and output are distinguished by the presence or absence of prompts (‘>>> ’ and ‘... ’): to repeat the example, you must type everything after the prompt, when the prompt appears; lines that do not begin with a prompt are output from the interpreter. Note that a secondary prompt on a line by itself in an example means you must type a blank line; this is used to end a multi-line command.

Many of the examples in this manual, even those entered at the interactive prompt, include comments. Comments in Python start with the hash character, ‘#’, and extend to the end of the physical line. A comment may appear at the start of a line or following whitespace or code, but not within a string literal. A hash character within a string literal is just a hash character.

Some examples:

    # this is the first comment
    SPAM = 1             # and this is the second comment
                         # ... and now a third!
    STRING = "# This is not a comment."