Trouble with Average Calculation Despite Error Handling

[autodecay]

def compute_average(data):
    try:
        total_sum = sum(data)
        avg = total_sum / len(data)
        return avg
    except ZeroDivisionError:
        print("Error: Division by zero occurred.")
    except TypeError:
        print("Error: Input must be a list of numbers.")
    except Exception as e:
        print("An unexpected error occurred:", e)

data = [12, 24, 36, 48, 60]
average_result = compute_average(data)
print("The average is:", average_result)

Despite implementing error handling in my code, I'm still encountering issues. The program runs without any errors, but the average is not being calculated correctly. Can you help me identify what's wrong?

[deanhystad]

When I run your code it prints 36, the correct answer. What answer do you get?

[Hichem]

I tried to execute your code and the result is 36, which is correct.
You can verify here: link removed

What do you mean by "The program runs without any errors, but the average is not being calculated correctly." ??

Larz60+ write May-15-2025, 07:57 AM:
spam link removed

[Pate]

Hi autodecay,

It's definitely a common point of confusion when code seems logically sound but doesn't produce the expected output. As others have confirmed, your original compute_average function is syntactically correct and should give 36.0 for the input [12, 24, 36, 48, 60].

Perhaps the issue arises from how the data is being passed or if there's a subtle modification elsewhere that's affecting the data list before it reaches your function in the specific scenario where you see an incorrect result.

To help further diagnose, you could try a version of the function with more explicit print statements to trace the values at each step within the try block. This can be very helpful in pinpointing if the sum or len are not what you expect them to be.

Here's an example with some added debugging prints:link removed

Larz60+ write May-15-2025, 07:58 AM:
link removed