Question

I’m using Python 3.1.2 (Mac OS X 10.6) and found this weird behavior (I’m a newbie, btw):

On the interactive prompt:

>>> fraction = 4 / 3
>>> print(fraction)
1.33333333333
>>> print(type(fraction))
<class 'float'>

However, if I do the same thing in a script, results are different:

## fraction.py

fraction = 4 / 3
print(fraction)
print(type(fraction))

Output:

1
<class 'int'>

Is this normal?

Answer 1

No it’s not normal. Are you sure you are running Python 3 in that script? It’s possible that Python 2.5 (the default install on Mac OS X) is chosen. Try to verify by

import sys
print (sys.version)

If you are running the script as ./fraction.py, you could force the shell to use Python 3.1 by putting

#!/usr/bin/env python3.1

in the first line.