if indata == "C":
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
indata is a string. I don’t get it (the carrot is pointing to the colon)
[quote=“KenHorse, post:1, topic:9378”]
Sincerely , I cannot understand the context of the code a 100%, but I will try to give you a hint.
As you can see, the value of your statement change, depending on how you declare your variable.
Since, I don´t know what are the values of indata and “C”, and even what is the the nature of your project, I cannot give too much feedback.
But I suspect, the Syntax error is in the variables defined, or … these predicates are dependent of a loop or another function.
Hope it helps
In the mid
Sorry.
The context is I’m reading a serial port (pyserial)
while var==1:
indata = str(ser.readline())
#check for "C" and exit loop
if indata == "C":
break
Does that help?
Ok, got it 
In my limited Knowledge, I tried to bring a solution. Hope it helps:
you need to add a counter in your loop, in this way, the loop will stop at some point. And regarding syntax, the problem was the str. I did it only with ser.readline().
Sincerely hope it helps.
Hi Ken,
Thanks for posting your code, but I’m confident that it isn’t the same
code that you are using. Your code looks like this:
while var==1:
indata = str(ser.readline())
#check for "C" and exit loop
if indata == "C":
break
but that doesn’t give a SyntaxError. That is perfectly correct, legal
code (at least it is syntactically legal – it needs to have var
defined to actually work).
I am confident that the problem is that you are missing a closing
bracket on the indata line, like this:
while var==1:
indata = str(ser.readline() # oops, missing closing parenthesis
#check for "C" and exit loop
if indata == "C":
break
because that gives the SyntaxError you report:
>>> while var==1:
... indata = str(ser.readline()
... #check for "C" and exit loop
... if indata == "C":
File "<stdin>", line 4
if indata == "C":
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
So, three lessons here:
-
If you get a mysterious Syntax Error that otherwise doesn’t make
sense, there is a good chance that the cause is on the previous line,
due to missing brackets. -
When copying and pasting the code you are using, it helps to copy and
paste the actual code you are using, and not a slightly modified
version that accidentally fixes the fault you are reporting. -
And most importantly, I am bloody awesome grins
Sorry its been a long day and I need a pat on the back 
One other comment: if your intention is to have an infinite loop, you
don’t need the var==1 bit. You can just do this instead:
while True:
# infinite loop that will go forever
# or until you use break to exit
And it will be ever-so-slightly faster, if it matters.
Steven
Thank you! Yes, I did not post a line (as it was a print statement used for troubleshooting) that turned out to be the problem, with a missing “)”. I will remember your sage advice in the future.
Admittedly, my experience with Python is limited and most of that experience is with Python 2.7 and a LOT has changed. Thanks again for your help
As here you can see you defined indata == “c”
So “c” should be defined as C