I am very new to this site, and computer science in general, so this question has multiple purposes, can someone check my solution to this very simple Lesson 0 problem, and am I posting this in the correct place, and lastly, is there a more refined way to get spaces in the final output, I feel my solution is clunky.
x = raw_input('When were you born?')
y = raw_input('What is your last name?')
print 'You were born on ' + x + ' ' + 'and, ' + 'your last name is ' + y + '.'

Question

I am very new to this site, and computer science in general, so this question has multiple purposes, can someone check my solution to this very simple Lesson 0 problem, and am I posting this in the correct place, and lastly, is there a more refined way to get spaces in the final output, I feel my solution is clunky.
x = raw_input('When were you born?')
y = raw_input('What is your last name?')
print 'You were born on ' + x + ' ' + 'and, ' + 'your last name is ' + y + '.'

anonymous · Answer

I really wish i could help, but i dont know much about coding, here, let me link someone

@iambatman Could you help here at all?
or know someone who could?

anonymous · Answer

Hmm maybe @e.mccormick could throw something at ya :)

e.mccormick · Answer

print 'You were born on ' + x + ' ' + 'and, ' + 'your last name is ' + y + '.'

vs.

print 'You were born on ' + x + ' ' + 'and, your last name is ' + y + '.'

Yes, adding spaces between variables is clunky.  Welcome to computers.

anonymous · Answer

You can do
```python
x = raw_input('When were you born?')
y = raw_input('What is your last name?')
print 'You were born on {birthdate} and, your last name is {lastname}.'.format(birthdate=x, lastname=y)
```

anonymous · Answer

Pitamar, thank you for your solution.  However I am getting an error when i try to use the format option.  This seems like it would be the best way to go about this.  I am using python 2.5.4, could that be the issue, or do I have to do something specifically to get the format function to work?

anonymous · Answer

Hm, format works for python 2.6 and greater
You can use the this:
```
x = raw_input('When were you born?')
y = raw_input('What is your last name?')
print 'You were born on %s and, your last name is %s.' % (x, y)
```
I like it less because the order of the variables matters now, unlike with format where you use keywords instead.

anonymous · Answer

Thanks for the advice, the second solution worked perfect in 2.5, however based on your advice I will start using 2.7 instead as I can understand how the order of the variables can become time consuming and more tedious.

anonymous · Answer

Ok, good luck =)

e.mccormick · Answer

Yah, as you can see they have added improvements.  They are not 100% needed for the class, but it is nice to use some of the newer features in case you want to use Python after doing the course work.