Python nested if-else statements

Question

I have a statement like this

for word in tweet_text:
 if word in new_words:
 if new_words[word] == 0:
 new_words[word] = sent_count
 else:
 new_words[word] = (new_words[word] + sent_count) / 2

And I am very suspicious that the else block is executed every time when the first condition is not met (if word in new_words), is this possible?Am I am doing something wrong with indentication?

• Ryan Saxe: That seems fine to me...what are new_words and tweet_text, dictionaries?
• Geeky Guy: Scope in Python is determined by identation, and I think your code wouldn't even run if you mixed spaces with tabs... Are you really sure about what you're saying? Have you debugged your code?
• Petr Mensik: Yes, the point is that I get KeyError in else block but it should never happen because of first condition
• Eric: I think your mistake is in your maths - are you trying to average the number of each word?
• DSM: Yeah, it looks like an inconsistent indentation error (mixed tabs and spaces). Run your code with python -tt your_program_name.py to verify this, and then switch to four-space tabs.

Answer 1

The else clause corresponds to the if on the same level of indentation, as you expect.

The problem you see may be due to the fact that you are mixing tabs and spaces, so the apparent level of indentation is not the same as the one your interpreter sees.

Change all tabs into spaces and check if the problem goes away.