Python Coursera Assignement
<p>I am trying to learn Python through a course on Courser, and so far having a feeling I am not going to be able to.</p>

<p>I don't want an answer to the assignment, I want someone to push me in the right direction.  Because Im stuck and the online tutors there are not being any help just repeating the obvious that is already stated in the assignment.  The assignment is very simple, but I cant understand what I am missing.</p>

<p>Here is the assignment:
<em>Write a program that repeatedly prompts a user for integer numbers until the user enters 'done'. Once 'done' is entered, print out the largest and smallest of the numbers. If the user enters anything other than a valid number catch it with a try/except and put out an appropriate message and ignore the number. Enter the numbers from the book for problem 5.1 and Match the desired output as shown.</em></p>

<p>Here is my code, i tried using the example codes we where show for getting the minimum and maximum, but the problem is in the examples we had they had lists, here I was told I dont need a list.  But everytime the value of num changes with ever new input, how can i get the program to choose from certain numbers if they are not storing...or do you think i can enter lists in the raw_input?</p>

<pre><code>while True:
    inpt = raw_input("Enter a number: ")
    if inpt == "done" : break

    try:
        num = int(inpt)
    except:
        print "Invalid input"
    continue

largest = None
if largest is None:
    largest = num
elif num &gt; largest:
    largest = num

smallest = None 
if smallest is None:
    smallest = num
elif num &lt; smallest:
    smallest = num

print "Maximum is", largest
print "Minimum is", smallest
</code></pre>

<p>The numbers from the book are 4, 5, 7 and a word</p>

<p><strong>Thank you everyone for your support,</strong> I understand what I have to do, not sure if I understand how I will get there, but Im going to sit and keep trying. Meanwhile I am getting issues with indentation 
let's say I rewrote the code like this and want to add an if statement into the while loop</p>

<pre><code>largest = None
smallest = None

while True:
    inpt = raw_input("Enter a number: ")
    if inpt == "done" : break

    try:
        num = int(inpt)
    except:
        print "Invalid input"
    continue
</code></pre>

<p>should the if statement start with the same indent as the continue and then the inside of the if indented again??  Because Im getting errors when I do that</p>

<p>You should check for the largest and smallest numbers inside the loop. First check if its a number - if yes, carry on and see if it is bigger than your current <code>largest</code> variable value (start with 0). If yes, replace it. See, if its smaller than your <code>smallest</code> value (start with the first number that comes in, if you start with 0 or just a random number, you might not get lower that that. If you start with the first number, then it'll definitely be the smallest (after all the loops)), etc, etc. All of that should be done inside the loop and after the loop should be just the printing. And yes, you don't need to use lists.</p>

python