Question

I am attempting to eval the following tab-indented string:

'''for index in range(10):
        os.system("echo " + str(index) + "")
'''

I get, “There was an error: invalid syntax , line 1”

What is it complaining about? Do I need to indent to match the eval() statement, or write it to a string file or temp file and execute that, or something else?

Thanks,

Answer 1

eval evaluates stuff like 5+3

exec executes stuff like for ...

>>> eval("for x in range(3):print x")
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 1
    for x in range(3):print x
      ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> exec("for x in range(3):print x")
0
1
2
>>> eval('5+3')
8