So far, every value in your programs has been hardcoded. input() lets your program ask the person running it for information.

name = input("What's your name? ")
print(f"Hello, {name}!")

input() does two things: it displays the message you pass it (the prompt), pauses the program, and waits for the user to type something and press Enter. Whatever they typed is returned as a string.

In this browser: since there's no terminal here, input() in the exercises below opens a small popup asking for the value. In a normal terminal, it would simply wait for you to type and press Enter on the same line as the prompt.

input() always returns a string

This trips a lot of beginners up. Even if the user types a number, input() gives you back a string — you need to convert it if you want to do math with it (remember lesson 1.5!).

age_text = input("How old are you? ")
age = int(age_text)
print(f"Next year you'll be {age + 1}.")

A common shortcut is to convert on the same line:

age = int(input("How old are you? "))
print(f"Next year you'll be {age + 1}.")

Combining input with f-strings

name = input("Name: ")
city = input("City: ")
print(f"{name} lives in {city}.")

Try it yourself

Ask the user for their name with input(), then print a greeting using an f-string.

Checkpoint

• input(prompt) displays prompt, waits for input, and returns it as a string.
• Convert the result with int() or float() if you need to do math with it.
• input() pauses program execution until the user responds.