Question

how do i specify a data type when accepting arguments in a function in Python?
(i want to accept a float)

Answer 1

As far as I know, you don't. You can do some defensive programming (using type() to check etc), but giving a type for input preemptively, I don't think that it is possible. You declare def foo(x): and then, depending on the input, the interpreter(on the fly, I believe) knows whether it is an int, float or string and reacts accordingly. (int -> float conversion is implicit on Python also, so it works fine if the argument is 3 instead of 3.0 for example).

Answer 2

The input routines return a string. You convert/assign it. If you wrap all that in a try statement....

try:
foo = float( raw_input( "Enter a number: " ) )
except:
print "dummy!"

Answer 3

Thanks. yes, i ended up doing type checking.
the equivilence of declaring "def foo(bar as int)" is possible in another language i know (VBA). just learning python now. :)