Asking for Help: How does the value from input() become a number, not a string? In 3.2?
At least in general for Python 2, not specifically about 3.2 where input is presumably the equivalent of raw_input in Python 2, the input is evaluated using the mechanism Python employs to evaluate expressions, so what happens is rather similar to what you would see at Python's interactive prompt except that only expressions are allowed, not statements.
So, if you provide a number in response to input(), such as...
34
...input actually evaluates the string "34" and returns the number 34. But input does more than evaluate numbers. For example:
34 + 45
Here, input actually evaluates the string "34 + 45" and returns 79. Note that input wants Python syntax, so if you want to just capture some text, you have to write a string in Python syntax:
"ABC"
If you don't do this, then input will give an error.
>>> input() ABC Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> File "<string>", line 1, in <module> NameError: name 'ABC' is not defined
For just capturing strings, use raw_input. The input function is only recommended if you want to evaluate Python expressions read from input and if you can trust those expressions. Don't use input on data received from random people on the Internet, for example, as the code in the expressions can access other parts of your program just like your own code.
In 3.2, you would reproduce the functionality of input from Python 2 by combining eval with Python 3's input function:
result = eval(input())