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Python Python Basics (2015) Logic in Python Try and Except

Andrew Reidlinger
Andrew Reidlinger
1,669 Points

Don't understand why my code isn't working for this challenge.

The objective is this: Right now, we turn everything into a float. That's great so long as we're getting numbers or numbers as a string. We should handle cases where we get a non-number, though. Add a try block before where you turn your arguments into floats. Then add an except to catch the possible ValueError. Inside the except block, return None. If you're following the structure from the videos, add an else: for your final return of the added floats.

I've tried everything I can think of to make this work. I have made several changes that work perfectly fine in my own text editor but for some reason they aren't acceptable for this challenge. Keeps giving me error message that it can't convert int to str implicitly

trial.py
def add(one, two):
    try:
        add = (one + two)
    except ValueError:
        return None
    else:
        return(float(one) + float(two))

1 Answer

AJ Salmon
AJ Salmon
5,675 Points

Hiya Andrew.

There are a couple ways to do this one, but I'll focus on the one that follows the structure of the videos :)

Under the try statement, you should be assigning the sum of float(one) and float(two) to a variable, in this case add will work (side note- giving variables the same name as your function can sometimes lead to confusion). So you'll have

def add(one, two):
    try:
        add = float(one) + float(two)
    except ValueError:
        return None

This way, python will add the floated numbers unless it gets a ValueError. Then, you just have to return add under an else! I'll leave you to write that on your own :)

Happy coding!

AJ