Python if statements giving error when using negative floats

Question

Here is my code which returns the timezone a set of coordinates are in. The IDE is telling me that a colon is expected somewhere in the nested if statement. The first if statement seems to be fine. and when I take out the negative signs in the other if statements they work fine. Thanks for any help!

def findTimeZone(coordinatesString):
    coordinates = coordinatesString.split(",")
    if 24.660845 <= float(coordinates[0]) <= 49.189787:
        if ‐87.518395 <= float(coordinates[1])  < ‐67.44457:
            return "eastern"
        elif ‐87.518395 <= float(coordinates[1]) < ‐101.998892:
            return "central"
        elif ‐101.998892 <= float(coordinates[1]) < ‐115.236428:
            return "mountain"
        elif ‐115.236428 <= float(coordinates[1]) <= ‐125.242264:
            return "pacific"

I could just assign each float to a variable but I would like to know why this is causing an error, Thanks.

I think this is an issue with encoding. Try writing the - manually in python IDLE. — Sayandip Dutta
– Sayandip Dutta, Commented Nov 8, 2019 at 5:22

ArunJose · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-08 05:21:49Z

1

Are you copy pasting the code from some document. In your code I could see the "-" negative symbol was some other special character

Try writing the "-" using your keyboard. This happens usualy due to unicode conversion issues because "-" symbol may look the same but act different

answered Nov 8, 2019 at 5:21

ArunJose

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Red Cricket · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-08 05:22:29Z

1

Those aren't -'s like you think. Replace whatever it is you are using for the negative sign with an actual -.

answered Nov 8, 2019 at 5:22

Red Cricket

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2ps · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-08 05:24:47Z

0

As an aside, and in addition to what both the other answers have said, your logic is wrong:

Use this instead:

def findTimeZone(coordinatesString):
    coordinates = coordinatesString.split(",")
    if 24.660845 <= float(coordinates[0]) <= 49.189787:
        if -87.518395 <= float(coordinates[1])  < -67.44457:
            return "eastern"
        elif -87.518395 > float(coordinates[1]) >= -101.998892:
            return "central"
        elif -101.998892 > float(coordinates[1]) >= -115.236428:
            return "mountain"
        elif -115.236428 > float(coordinates[1]) >= -125.242264:
            return "pacific"

answered Nov 8, 2019 at 5:24

2ps

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user11796003 · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-08 05:28:40Z

0

Let me try to help. I think you are getting error invalid character in identifier

Identifiers or “names” can have only the following characters in python

-> a to z (alphabets lowercase)

-> A to Z (alphabets uppercase)

-> 0 to 9 (digits)

-> _ (underscore)

answered Nov 8, 2019 at 5:28

user11796003

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