TypeError: 'str' object is not callable

Question

name = raw_input("Welcome soldier. What is your name? ")
print('Ok,', name, ' we need your help.')
print("Do you want to help us? (Yes/No) ")
ans = raw_input().lower()

while True:
    ans = raw_input().lower()("This is one of those times when only Yes/No will do!" "\n"  "So what will it be? Yes? No?")

    ans = raw_input().lower()
    if ans() == 'yes' or 'no':
        break
    if ans == "yes":
        print ("Good!")
    elif ans == "no":
        print("I guess I was wrong about you..." '\n' "Game over.")

When I answer this happens;

First a blank line, then if I press the enter key again;

  File "test.py", line 11, in <module>
    ans = raw_input().lower()("This is one of these times when only Yes/No will
do!" "\n" "So what will it be? Yes? No?")
TypeError: 'str' object is not callable

What seams to be the problem?

PS I searched the site but it seams that all the people with the same problem had far more advanced scripts and I did not understand anything.

Answer 1

TypeError: 'str' object is not callable usually means you are using your () notation on a string, and Python tries to use that str object as a function. eg "hello world"() , or "hello"("world")

I think you meant to do :

ans = raw_input("This is one of those times...").lower()

Another mistake:

if ans() == 'yes' or 'no':

You have to check for both conditions individually,

Should be :

 if ans == 'yes' or ans == 'no':
        break

or more inline with what you wanted in the first place:

if ans in ('yes', 'no')

Answer 2

The first error is in the line

ans = raw_input().lower()("This is one of those times when only Yes/No will do!"
                          "\n"  "So what will it be? Yes? No?")

The result of lower() is a string, and parentheses after that mean that the object on the left (the string) gets called. Therefore, you get your error. You want

ans = raw_input("This is one of those times when only Yes/No will do!\n"
                "So what will it be? Yes? No?").lower()

Also,

if ans() == 'yes' or 'no':

does not what you expect. Again, ans is a string, and parentheses mean that the object on the left (the string) gets called. Therefore, you get your error.

Also, or is a logical operator. Even after removing the parentheses after ans , the code gets evaluated as:

if (ans == 'yes') or ('no'):

Since a non-empty string ( 'no' ) evaluates to the boolean value True, this expression is always True. You simply want

if ans in ('yes', 'no'):

Additionally, you want to unindent the last lines. All in all, try:

name = raw_input("Welcome soldier. What is your name? ")
print('Ok, ' + name + ' we need your help.')
ans = raw_input("Do you want to help us? (Yes/No)").lower()
while True:
    if ans in ('yes', 'no'):
        break
    print("This is one of those times when only Yes/No will do!\n")
    ans = raw_input("So what will it be? Yes? No?").lower()

if ans == "yes":
    print("Good!")
elif ans == "no":
    print("I guess I was wrong about you..." '\n' "Game over.")

Answer 3

You need to do raw_input("This is one of those times when only Yes/No will do!" "\\n" "So what will it be? Yes? No?").lower() .

When you do raw_input().lower() , that already calls raw_input() and converts the result to lowercase. By that time it's too late to try to pass your prompt string.