Python continue not properly in loop

Question

I am working with BeautifulSoup and I keep getting an error continue not properly in loop. So I deleted the continue and then I get an invalid syntax error for my print statement. I am running BS4 and Python 2.7.5 all help greatly appreciated. Here is my code.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

soup = BeautifulSoup (open("43rd-congress.html"))

final_link = soup.p.a
final_link.decompose()

trs = soup.find_all('tr')

for tr in trs:
for link in tr.find_all('a'):
    fulllink = link.get('href')
    print fulllink #print in terminal to verify results

tds = tr.find_all("td")


try: #we are using "try" because the table is not well formatted. 
   names = str(tds[0].get_text()) 
   years = str(tds[1].get_text())
   positions = str(tds[2].get_text())
   parties = str(tds[3].get_text())
   states = str(tds[4].get_text())
   congress = tds[5].get_text()

except:
  print "bad tr string"
  continue 

print names, years, positions, parties, states, congress

Your code isn't formatted correctly. Can you format it as it should? @MartijnPieters I believe the whole part of the code below the first for is wrongly nested. — Loïc Faure-Lacroix
– Loïc Faure-Lacroix, Commented Oct 25, 2013 at 16:58
Is everything after for tr in trs: supposed to be in that loop? Please indent accordingly. — Janne Karila
– Janne Karila, Commented Oct 25, 2013 at 17:02

Loïc Faure-Lacroix · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-25 17:04:05Z

Since you seem to have the error, I believe that you probably really have the wrong indent in your file. Your code should look like this probably:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

soup = BeautifulSoup (open("43rd-congress.html"))

final_link = soup.p.a
final_link.decompose()

trs = soup.find_all('tr')

for tr in trs:

    for link in tr.find_all('a'):
        fulllink = link.get('href')
        print fulllink #print in terminal to verify results

    tds = tr.find_all("td")


    try: #we are using "try" because the table is not well formatted. 
       names = str(tds[0].get_text()) 
       years = str(tds[1].get_text())
       positions = str(tds[2].get_text())
       parties = str(tds[3].get_text())
       states = str(tds[4].get_text())
       congress = tds[5].get_text()

       print names, years, positions, parties, states, congress

    except exc:
      print "bad tr string"

In python, each block of code should be nested with indent using tabs/space. Mixing them isn't good.

In your code, you have a first for loop that will walk all tr and a second that prints all urls.

But you forgot to indent the first block that should be inside the for loop.

Edit

Also you don't have to use continue in your case. Check my edit to your code.

Dan L · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-25 16:59:55Z

0

Indentation looks off on print/continue. If it is off, the except: will look like it's empty, which I'm not sure is something Python is happy with.

Try commenting out everything not related to the try/except and see if it still gives you the error.

answered Oct 25, 2013 at 16:59

Dan L

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