so ill post a few of my failed examples below along with what I came up with as a fix, and then the actual correct code. I feel like im so close to grasping this, but missing some logic. this is for a hangman game.
one of the failed attempts:
import random
word_list = ["aardvark", "baboon", "camel"]
chosen_word = random.choice(word_list)
#Testing code
print(f'Pssst, the solution is {chosen_word}.')
#Create an empty List called display.
#For each letter in the chosen_word, add a "_" to 'display'.
#So if the chosen_word was "apple", display should be ["_", "_", "_", "_", "_"] with 5 "_" representing each letter to guess.
display = ["_"] * len(chosen_word)
guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
#If the letter at that position matches 'guess' then reveal that letter in the display at that position.
#e.g. If the user guessed "p" and the chosen word was "apple", then display should be ["_", "p", "p", "_", "_"].
for letter in chosen_word:
if guess == letter:
for i in range(len(chosen_word)):
display.insert(i, guess)
print(display)
second:
for letter in chosen_word:
if guess == letter:
for i in range(len(chosen_word[letter])):
display.insert(i, guess)
I ended up just saying screw it and went to this:
display = []
for char in chosen_word:
if guess == letter:
display += letter
else:
display += "_"
correct way of doing it:
import random
word_list = ["aardvark", "baboon", "camel"]
chosen_word = random.choice(word_list)
print(f'Pssst, the solution is {chosen_word}.')
display = []
word_length = len(chosen_word)
for _ in range(word_length):
display += "_"
print(display)
guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
for position in range(word_length):
letter = chosen_word[position]
if letter == guess:
display[position] = letter
print(display)
so as you can see, i get that I can grab specific parts of a list using indices or slices, but somewhere in my brain my logic is wrong. if you guys have struggled with this before or if you have a good youtube video to help me break it down id be beyond thankful!
This is a pretty compact and - I think - easy to read way of doing it:
while(display != list(chosen_word)):
guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
display = list(map(lambda c, d: c if d != '_' or c == guess else d, chosen_word, display))
print(display)
print("Congrats! You did it!")
Mapping over an array is a pretty powerful tool and also using ternary expressions. If you're not familiar, a map basically just iterates over an array and runs a function on that item, replacing it with whatever the return value of the function is.
For example:
ones = [1, 1] twos = list(map(lambda n: n + 1, ones))
It's running the lambda function with n as a parameter and returning n + 1, and it's pulling the numbers from the array "ones".
Then ternary expressions I also find quite powerful. The format of which is basically:
(result if true) if (condition to check) else (result of false)
Or:
2 if 1 + 1 == 2 else "You broke math. How did you do that?"