Python AttributeError

Question

When I type this code into a python shell it works perfectly fine but within a program it gives an error.

import os
h = os.environ['HOME']

within a script it gives this error:

AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'environ'

Why is this happening and is there any way I can fix it?

(I'm kinda just learning python so I dont know much. Google didn't help)

Answer 1

Somewhere, you've created a string and named it os. The . is the attribute lookup operator, so it's complaining about the thing to the left of the ., in this case, os.

Answer 2

are you sure that between import os and h = os.environ['HOME'] you did not use os as a variable for a string?

edit: If you do not work with an editor with a debugger (e.g. Eclipse with PyDev), try to find out from which point os is no longer a module by calling print(os) at some key points in your code