What Is a Parse Error in Python?
Nothing in the file runs. That is what separates a parse error in Python from every other kind of failure. The interpreter reads your source, splits it into tokens, and tries to match those tokens against the language grammar. When the match fails you get a SyntaxError with a filename, a line, a column and a caret, and not one statement is evaluated. Not the imports, not the constants at the top, nothing.
What does parsing mean in Python?
Parsing is the step that turns your source text into a structure the interpreter can execute, and a parse error is that step failing. CPython tokenises the file, builds an abstract syntax tree, compiles the tree into bytecode, and only then enters the evaluation loop. A parse error stops everything at stage two. This is why a stray bracket on line 400 can prevent a print() on line 1 from producing any output.





