Get user input as int or str

Question

I\'m very new to python and believe me, I\'ve searched endlessly for a solution to this but I just can\'t get it.

I have a csv with a list of monitoring plots. With the

Answer 1

choice = raw_input("Select a monitoring plot from the list: ")

if choice == 'q':
    break

plotSelect = int(choice)
selected = dataList[plotSelect+1]

Check if the user entered q and explicitly break out of the loop if they do (rather than relying on an exception being thrown). Only convert their input an int after this check.