What does “SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'” mean in Python?

Question

When I try to use a print statement in Python, it gives me this error:

>>> print \"Hello, World!\"
  File \"\", line 1
            


        

Answer 1

Basically, since Python 3.x you need to use print with parenthesis.

Python 2.x: print "Lord of the Rings"

Python 3.x: print("Lord of the Rings")

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Explaination

print was a statement in 2.x, but it's a function in 3.x. Now, there are a number of good reasons for this.

1. With function format of Python 3.x, more flexibility comes when printing multiple items with comman separated.
2. You can't use argument splatting with a statement. In 3.x if you have a list of items that you want to print with a separator, you can do this:

>>> items = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']
>>> print(*items, sep='+') 
foo+bar+baz

3. You can't override a statement. If you want to change the behavior of print, you can do that when it's a function but not when it's a statement.