Return statement not returning value for email

Question

I'm trying write something that will return email body text once ran. What I have so far is:

from exchangelib import Credentials, Account
import urllib3
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

credentials = Credentials('fake@email', 'password')
account = Account('fake@email', credentials=credentials, autodiscover=True)

for item in account.inbox.all().order_by('-datetime_received')[:1]:
    html = item.unique_body
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, "html.parser")
    for span in soup.find_all('font'):
        return span.text

My issue is with the last line reading return span.text. If I were to replace this line with print(span.text), it runs perfectly and prints the body text of the email. However when replaced with return, it throws an error reading SyntaxError: 'return' outside function. I've been digging into the issue, and I can't seem to figure out why it is throwing this issue. I'm new to Python and could use some help. What can I do to solve this?

Answer 1

As your error would indicate, you need to place your return inside a function

from exchangelib import Credentials, Account
import urllib3
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

credentials = Credentials('fake@email', 'password')
account = Account('fake@email', credentials=credentials, autodiscover=True)

def get_email(span): # a function that can return values
    return span.text

for item in account.inbox.all().order_by('-datetime_received')[:1]:
    html = item.unique_body
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, "html.parser")
    for span in soup.find_all('font'):
        email_result = get_email(span) # call function and save returned value in a variable