Bad operand type for unary -: 'str'

Question

Problem:

I want to create a python script that should take input from the user and compare the value with zero. Every time the script should print a positive integer number. It doesn’t matter what the user has given as an input. Let’s say the user has given -5 as an input but the output should be 5. I guess it is not something that difficult to do. I tried to write a script to do so but the script is not printing as I expected and throws back an error says bad operand type for unary -: 'str'. I am attaching my sample script below. Please, have a look and help me to fix it.

n = input('input a random number: ')
if int(n) >=0:
    print(n)
else:
    print(-n)

I am a novice in python programming. So please keep your solution as simple as possible. I appreciate your help a lot.
Thanks.

Answer 1

The problem happened with the very first line of your script. In your case, you are taking input as a string, because you didn't initialize n as an integer type. Then, in the next line you expecting the input as an integer value. That is really absurd. To avoid the TypeError take the input as an integer and stored to your variable n and then proceed on.

n = int(input('Input a random number: '))
if n >=0:
    print(n)
else:
    print(-n)

Now, the script is looking good and should print as you are expecting.

Thanks.