[FIXED] Why am I getting "invalid syntax" from an f-string?

Issue

I cannot get f-strings to work in Python 3. I tried this at the REPL:

In [1]: state = "Washington"

In [2]: state
Out[2]: 'Washington'

In [3]: my_message = f"I live in {state}"
File "<ipython-input-3-d004dd9e0255>", line 1
my_message = f"I live in {state}"
                                ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

I figured my machine was defaulting to python 2, but a quick check reveals:

Python 3.5.2 (default, Nov 17 2016, 17:05:23) 
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

IPython 5.2.2 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.

What is wrong, and how do I fix it?

Solution

As suggested by Josh Lee in the comment section, that kind of string interpolation was added in Python 3.6 only, see What’s New In Python 3.6 (here it's called "PEP 498: Formatted string literals").

However, you seem to be using Python 3.5.2, which does not support that syntax.

Answered By - yeputons