Assigning variable values to if statement

Question

if GPA == unweighted:
A+ = 4.33
A = 4
A- = 3.67
B+ = 3.33
B = 3.0
value1 = credits*grade1

Ok so I am trying to assign those number values to those variables if the if statement is true, but when I run the program, it says there is a syntax error. Can someone please help me fix this? Thanks.

Answer 1

You can't use operators as part of the identifiers for your variables. Full explanation in the Python docs about identifiers

The Python interpreter will identify the + and - as actual code to execute and not as part of you variables names like A+ .

In Python as well as in other programming languages the only allowed characters for variable identifiers are letters ( az , AZ ), numbers ( 0-9 ) and underscore ( _ ). Though keep in mind there is an extra rule that specified you can't start an identifier with a number as well. Additional to that, in Python 3 (via PEP 3131 ) support was added for non-ASCII characters, meaning you could even write your variables in Russian ( картофель = 10 ).

I would rename those variables as a_plus , a_minus o b_plus .

Answer 2

Why not use a dictionary? You can store the weighted and unweighted grade scales with the grades as keys.

gpa = {
    'unweighted':
        {
        'A+' : 4.33,
        'A'  : 4,
        'A-' : 3.67,
        'B+' : 3.33,
        'B'  : 3.0,
        'B-' : 2.67
        },
    'weighted':
        {
        'A+' : 4.67,
        'A'  : 4.3
        }
    }