Python ‘list indices must be integers, not tuple”

I have been banging my head against this for two days now. I am new to python and programming so the other examples of this type of error have not helped me to much. I am reading through the documentation for lists and tuples, but haven’t found anything that helps. Any pointer would be much appreciated. Not looking for the answer necessarily, just more resources on where to look. I am using Python 2.7.6. Thanks

measure = raw_input("How would you like to measure the coins? Enter 1 for grams 2 for pounds.  ")

coin_args = [
["pennies", '2.5', '50.0', '.01'] 
["nickles", '5.0', '40.0', '.05']
["dimes", '2.268', '50.0', '.1']
["quarters", '5.67', '40.0', '.25']
]

if measure == 2:
    for coin, coin_weight, rolls, worth in coin_args:
        print "Enter the weight of your %s" % (coin)
        weight = float(raw_input())
        convert2grams = weight * 453.592

        num_coin = convert2grams / (float(coin_weight))
        num_roll = round(num_coin / (float(rolls)))
        amount = round(num_coin * (float(worth)), 2)

        print "You have %d %s, worth $ %d, and will need %d rolls." % (num_coin, coin, amount, num_roll)

else:
    for coin, coin_weight, rolls, worth in coin_args:
        print "Enter the weight of your %s" % (coin)
        weight = float(raw_input())

        num_coin = weight / (float(coin_weight))
        num_roll = round(num_coin / (float(rolls)))
        amount = round(num_coin * (float(worth)), 2)

        print "You have %d %s, worth $ %d, and will need %d rolls." % (num_coin, coin, amount, num_roll)

This is the stack trace:

File ".coin_estimator_by_weight.py", line 5, in <module>
  ["nickles", '5.0', '40.0', '.05']
TypeError: list indices must be integers, not tuple

Answer

The problem is that [...] in python has two distinct meanings

1. expr [ index ] means accessing an element of a list
2. [ expr1, expr2, expr3 ] means building a list of three elements from three expressions

In your code you forgot the comma between the expressions for the items in the outer list:

[ [a, b, c] [d, e, f] [g, h, i] ]

therefore Python interpreted the start of second element as an index to be applied to the first and this is what the error message is saying.

The correct syntax for what you’re looking for is

[ [a, b, c], [d, e, f], [g, h, i] ]