Reading Stdin

1. Reading Input

In Python, the input() function is used to read input to the program while the program is running. This input comes from a stream of data called standard input or stdin. This can either mean the data a user types in manually into the terminal (console) or input that is supplied to the program before it is run.

user_input = input("Enter some text: ") 

print(user_input) # This will print the input to the console

2. Type Conversion with Input

By default, input() returns the user input as a string. If you're expecting a different type of input like an integer or a float, you need to explicitly convert it using int() or float().

age = int(input("Enter your age: "))

temperature = float(input("Enter the temperature: "))

3. Parse Input

Suppose you read a list of integers separated by commas into a string, but you want to store them as a list. You can use the split() method to split the string by commas. This will convert "1,2,3" into a list of strings ["1", "2", "3"]. In this case, the "," is considered the delimiter.

number_string = "1,2,3"

string_list = number_string.split(",")

print(string_list) # Output: ['1', '2', '3']