TypeError: type object is not subscriptable

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

I was recently working on our last blog post how to reverse a string in python and I came across this error.

The thought passed me what does it mean and how can I fix it?

So what does the error actually mean?

Essentially it means that , you are trying to access a type of an object, that has a property of “type”.

What is property of type? Well it is :

• int()
• str()
• tuple()
• dict()

The above alllow you to change your data to these data types, so the data contained within them can be further manipulated.

In essence you are trying to use a type in the wrong way and in the wrong place in your code.

By calling it , it will throw this error, and they should be avoided, as a it is a built in function.

Lets take an example of how we can replicate this error and fix it

name1 = "joe" # These have index values of [0,1,2]
emptylist =[]
strlength = len(name1) # Returns length of three
while strlength > 0:
    emptylist += str[strlength - 1] #This is the last index value of the variable "name1"
    strlength = strlength - 1
print(emptylist)

In the above code all appears well, but in line 5 the “str” before the [ is the problem. The code automatically looks to call this function.

The simple answer to fixing this is to rename it to name1 as follows:

name1 = "joe" # These have index values of [0,1,2]
emptylist =[]
strlength = len(name1) # Returns length of three
while strlength > 0:
    emptylist += name1[strlength - 1] #This is the last index value of the variable "name1"
    strlength = strlength - 1
print(emptylist)

which gives you the following error free output:

Result with no error: ['e', 'o', 'j']

In summary and what not to do

So it is clear that referencing types as a string variable should be avoided, and keep your code clean from this perspective.

This would also apply to any reserved words in Python as well.