Hi what I want to do is this.
from googlefinance import getQuotes
def live_price(symbol):
price = getQuotes(symbol)[0].values()[3]
print price
If I run this, it will give me a price of a certain stock I entered in the func of live_price. But I want to do some calculation like this:
live_price('A')+live_price('B')
But since print does not give me the price as an "output" I cannot use those numbers for calculating something.
So I tried just price instead of print price at the last line.
Then it gives me the price of a certain stock as an output so that I can use it for calculating. But the thing is that the number is a string, it will not calculate properly.
What should I do to pull the price as an output so that I can use the number to compute things that I want to calculate?
Sounds like you have a 'string'. You want a number, so convert it to a float or Decimal:
In [1]: my_str = '1.35'
In [2]: my_str_as_a_number = float(my_str)
In [3]: my_str_as_a_number
Out[3]: 1.35
In [4]: my_str_as_a_number + 1
Out[4]: 2.35
float is built-in, but if you want Decimal you need to import it first.
In [5]: from decimal import Decimal
In [6]: my_str_as_a_decimal = Decimal(my_str)
In [7]: my_str_as_a_decimal + 1
Out[7]: Decimal('2.35')
You can convert Decimal to float as well.
In [8]: float(_)
Out[8]: 2.35
The advantage of using Decimals over using floating point is that Decimals avoid some common gotchas caused by floating point representation's inexact nature.