using a leading zero (0) in Python 3.8

Question

Why do you get the error below in Python ver 3.8

print(01)

SyntaxError: leading zeros in decimal integer literals are not permitted; use an 0o prefix for octal integers

Answer 1

The reason for this is because a non-zero decimal integer literal(21,5,15, etc) can't start of with a zero(021,05,015). But yet we can write print(00000) and get back 0. This violated a Python rule that said a syntax error would be raised if 0 is the starting number, followed by another number(including zero). So they changed it to where we can use int("0")+1 or whatever number and get back 1 or that number in return. But as for why we couldn't just start with 0 followed by whatever numbers is a complete mystery.