Data validation is a large in-depth topic, so for now we'll keep it simple. As a programmer, it is your responsibility to validate all data that your program receives from any source as best you can. There's an old phrase that applies here: garbage in garbage out. In our context, this means that if we allow invalid data into our programs, files, databases, etc., when we need to use that data for important processes such as transaction processing, customer records, financial calculations, etc. our results will be poor.

Let's take a look at the two problems identified above and discuss possible approaches to validate the data after the user enters it into our programs. Invalid Data Types: The first problem we identified above about a user's entry for our age prompt is related to invalid data types. Even though the input() function accepts any data type entered as a string, ultimately the age must be a numeric and even more specifically an integer. Python provides some string methods to help us determine the contents of a string. You can find a full list of string methods on the String Methods Reference page. On that reference page, you'll notice a group of methods that start with "is", like isalpha(), isnumeric(), etc. These are often referred to as the is methods. This group of methods evaluates a string and returns True or False if the string contains the type of data indicated by the method name. So, for example, if our string is s = "Bob" then isalpha() will return True because all characters in the string are alphabetic. If s was "Bob5", or "Bob.Smith", or "Bob ", etc. then isalpha() would return False.

Returning to our age example, one aspect of a valid age is that it is an integer with no decimal portion or other characters. If we look at the list of string methods, we see isdigit() which returns True if all characters in a string are digits (no decimal points or other characters). We can confirm this will work for our purposes with a simple prompt and decision statement:

Code Example:

age = input("Please enter your age: ")
if age.isdigit():
    print("The string contains all digits")
else:
    print("The string does not contain all digits")

Code Details

• In Line 1 we prompt for the age as usual.
• We then use age.isdigit() in Line 2 to evaluate the contents of the user's entry.
• If the value they entered contains all digits, the if statement will return True.
• If the value they entered contains anything other than some combination of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, then the if statement will return False.

Output (after program runs 3 times):

Please enter your age: 25
The string contains all digits

Please enter your age: 25.5
The string does not contain all digits

Please enter your age: adsfasdf
The string does not contain all digits

Output Details

• Lines 1 & 2 demonstrate the first run of the program. In this case, the user entered 25, which is an integer and contains no non=digit characters, so the result is True.
• Lines 4 & 5 demonstrate a user's entry which is a decimal (float) value, which results in a False result from the isdigit() function because of the decimal point.
• Lines 7 & 8 demonstrate a user's entry which is a set of characters that are not numeric, which results in a False result from the if statement.

(Almost) Full Data Validation Solution Using isdigit()

Now, let's use isdigit() to add data validation to our age example. By adding this functionality, the user will be prompted for the age, and then we will use a loop to test their entry. If they entered a valid integer we will continue, otherwise, we will repeatedly prompt the user until they provide a valid integer.

Code Example:

age = input("Please enter your age: ")
while not age.isdigit():
    print("Error: Invalid age, please try again.")
    age = input("Please enter your age: ")
print("Your age is", age, sep=" ")

Why can't we just use the int() function?:

One question you may have at this point is why can't we just use the int() function to convert the user's input into the integer value? Like this:

age = int(input("Please enter your age: "))

Without data validation, that will only work if the user enters a valid integer value. If the user types in any data type other than an integer (like string, float, etc.) the user will have a run-time error which is something we as programmers must try to avoid. We would want to convert the user-entered age (string) value to an integer at some point, however, we would do this after it has been validated.

Now ... A More Complete Data Validation Solution

Even after everything covered above, we still have not addressed the other problem related to the age variable. What happens if we implement the data validation above but the user enters a value like 56465 as the age? It is an integer, but it is still invalid because human age does not reach that high of a number. So, in addition to the data validation code, we used earlier, now we need to add range boundary validation. This type of data validation is commonly referred to as boundary testing.

Using the age example, the boundaries of age for humans is, commonly, greater than zero and less than 125. The oldest known person in history was 122 years old, so an upper boundary of 125 is reasonable, should cover all cases, and avoid outrageously large age values. So, let's add a boundary test to our solution. This time I will introduce a couple of new concepts and while loop options that help us with this type of validation.

The general form of the Try-Except exception handling structure in Python is as follows:

try:
    Statement(s)
except:
    Statement(s)
else:
    Statement(s)
finally:
    Statement(s)

Code Details:

• The try section contains the block of code you want to run.
• The except section runs if an exception occurs with the code in the try code block. This is often where we place error messages and code to try to gracefully handle the exception. If no exceptions occur, this block of code will not run.
• The else section is the code that will run if no exception(s) occur. If exceptions occur, this block of code will not run.
• The finally section is a block of code that always runs, whether or not there is an exception. We often place

Example: Division by Zero

If you recall we learned previously that division by zero in computers is undefined. A common use of try-except is to handle the possibility of division by zero. In this example, I'll demonstrate this issue by prompting the user for two values and then dividing one from the other. Since I cannot control what the user enters, I'll use a try-except to catch the division by zero exception.

The following code is my first attempt at a solution.

x = int(input("Please enter first integer: "))
y = int(input("Please enter second integer: "))
try:
    z = x / y
except ZeroDivisionError:
    print("Error: You cannot divide by zero,\nso, your second integer cannot be zero.")
else:
    print("The result of dividing your first integer by the second is", x / y, sep=" ")
finally:
    print("Done.")

Code Details:

• Lines 1 & 2 prompt the user for two integer values. Note that these use the int() function to convert the user's entries into integers. I am assuming that the user will enter integers, but we know from the discussion above that this is problematic.
• On Line 3, I initiate the try: block.
• Line 4 contains the code we want to try. Note that it contains the division calculation, which is where the code could possibly fail if the user entered zero for the second integer input in Line 2.
• Line 5 initiates the except block, with the name ZeroDivisionError.
• Line 6 contains the code that will run if, and only if, there is an exception (in this example, division by zero), on Line 4.
• Line 7 initiates the else block.
• Line 8 runs if, and only if, there are no exceptions, which is the output of the division.
• Line 9 initiates the finally block.
• Line 10 runs regardless of whether there was an exception or not. In this example, I placed a simple print statement here just for demonstration purposes.

And now ... Let's Finish the Age Data Validation Solution Using try-except
Also, we'll introduce the break and continue statements as well...

Now that I have introduced you to the try-except construct, we can add it to our evolving solution to the age variable problem from above. As a reminder, we identified two problems with prompting the user for their age: the data type and the range of human age. We solved the data type issue with the isdigit() function. And we began discussing the issue of accepting only a range of valid values for human age (0 thru 125). Now let's incorporate try-except to finish up our age data solution, which also introduces the break and continue statement options for while loops as well.

The code

while True:
    age = input("Please enter your age (1 thru 125): ")
    try:
        age = int(age)
    except:
        print('Error: Please use only digits 0 thru 9.')
        continue
    if age < 1 or age > 125:
        print('Error: Valid age range is 1 thru 125.')
        continue
    break
print('Your age is', age, sep=" ")

Code Details:

• Line 1 reads while True:. Interesting. If you remember from our discussion of while loops, this is an infinite loop. What's up with that? This is a common approach to handling an unknown number of iterations. In this example, we are forcing the user to enter a valid age, so, we as programmers have no idea how many times the user will enter invalid values, so we set an "infinite" loop and then control the exit of the loop inside the loop instead of in the signature with a condition. We'll see how we do that shortly.
• Line 2 is our input() function prompt. When the user enters a value, it is assigned to the variable age.
• Line 3 we add our try: statement, which begins our try-except block.
• Line 4 is the line where we attempt to convert the user-entered age value using the int() function. This is where we could have an exception because if the user entered a non-numeric value it would cause an exception. Also, if they entered a decimal value, it would cause an exception as well.
• Line 5 we add our except: block.
• Line 6 will run if, and only if, there is an exception on Line 4. This will display an error message to the user.
• Line 7 is a continue statement. The continue statement returns execution to the while loop signature. Since the signature is while True: the loop will simply repeat and prompt the user for their age again.
• If there is no exception, then Line 8 will run (notice that this is outside of the try-except structure). This line is our age range validation, the if statement checks if the age value entered by the user is between 0 and 125 as we decided earlier.
• If the user-entered age is outside of our range, an error message is printed on Line 9 for the user.
• Line 10 is another continue statement. The continue statement returns execution to the while loop signature. Since the signature is while True: the loop will simply repeat and prompt the user for their age again.
• We then place a break statement on Line 10. If execution reaches this line, it means that the user entered a valid integer and also a valid numeric value within our defined age range... in other words, a valid age. The break statement forces an exit from the while loop.
• Line 12 prints the age. Note that this is outside of the while loop.

There are additional features and options available with exception handling in Python. Full documentation is available at the Python.org documentation site: Errors and Exceptions

© 2023 John Gordon
Cascade Street Publishing, LLC