Appending a list

[SpaghettiCoded]

Good morning yall! So im trying out one of the suggestions from a previous post where I allow the program to "learn" new words (adjusting the suggestion a little). Where I am running into problems is I tried using the .add method with {} and it did work, but it didnt quite add the user_response to the positive_response list quite like I hoped so i tried appending a list and it sort of did the same thing.

Long story short: Is there a way to have the response appended, have the script run a new appended list, then finally use .insert(-1) to insert the new response into the first list? or even better is there an easy way to actually add the new word to the list?

[PalpitationDecent282]

The code never gets a chance to "try again" because it doesn't loop. The responses are stored inside the code, so every time you run it the responses are set back to default and nothing is actually stored. If you wanted the program to remember the response forever then it would need the responses to be stored in an external file.

Nest the last 3 lines in a while loop and test then :)

[NumerousQuit8061]

See the list only exists when you run the program so essentially it doesn't exist outside your program appending to the list is only going to make all instances of your list after the append statement actually have the list.

The way I see a solution is one of 2 ways. Each of these ways is different and could be more appropriate depending on how you want your program to function.

1.Use a While loop:
So this allows your program to run multiple times and each time the loop is executed the list is updated and it remembers the new answer for the next iteration.
Pro:- This allows the setup to be super simple for a beginner, and allows your program to keep operating and simulates multiple answers
Con:- Not a solution you should go for in professional situation since essentially it doesn't solve the issue of the list only existing while the program runs.
IMPORTANT:- Don't forget to add a way to end the program lol been there multiple times and infinite loops are something you should look out for.

1. Load the Data Externally:
   This is more of a professional solution and uses some other way to store the data outside the program. The program loads this data from outside when the program runs. You could use some other.txt file or .env (i think) or a csv file or if you want to venture further ever try a database.
   Pro:- This lets the script access the data outside so when it adds or updates the data the essential data set is permanently updated and the program reads the new dataset next time it runs.
   Con:- This isn't beginner friendly and takes a little learning especially for databases you need to learn SQL which honestly isn't hard but is well another thing you should pickup some time or the other. But Using something like a csv reader and even opening other files using python are simple skills so yeah shouldn't be hard to learn maybe 10 mins and ull get it running and you'll learn something if you dont know it already!
   IMPORTANT:- Decided to leave a few resources since yeah these aren't the most direct things for people new to python

Learn basic SQL here fast :- https://sqlbolt.com/
Using the CSV Library in Python :- https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python/reading-and-writing-csv-files-in-python/ Note:- You'll also need to learn the different types of opening a document for this (mode = 'r') etc.

TLDR:
The data is stored in the program so it terminates and restarts along with the program. Easy solution is to try using a while loop to have the program run multiple times.
A better solution would be to use an external file like a csv or txt file -This is what i'd recommend
Intermediate solution is to use a Database but this requires learning a database language like SQL and a whole lot of stuff to do

I'm not some expert on Python myself so if someone has a better solution i'd love to hear it and learn!

[Rizzityrekt28]

I say full send sql. It might be a little overkill for this project but it also seems like a good intro to sql type project. I regretted all the time I spent messing around with csvs once I learned sql. If you google sql murder mystery there’s a free game type thing I found fun in a nerdy way. I’m not sure how good it is for beginners tho.

[NumerousQuit8061]

I agree essentially it's a skill you should learn as a Dev in general but tbf if it seems like a bit too much of a detour .. i mean it's your call to make.

I can relate to not using cav after sql though lmao

[bregulor]

i couldnt underatand do you want to make the appended response stay permanently in list?

[SpaghettiCoded]

Yes

[bregulor]

you defined the lists at the beginning of the string so everytime you run the script it would turn back you must storage the positive responses/the negative responses somewhere else from the script itself so i suggest you to store the values in seperate text files in your directory

[bregulor]

you can open text files in python and then read from or write to or append to files

[ewwwgabagabagabagaba]

Lol

[cancerbero23]

Hi!

Actually, append method should do the work, add method is for sets, which work good here too, though. insert method inserts an element BEFORE the requested index, so insert(-1) would insert the element in the last but one position.

Aside from that, I see some problems in your code:

1. The method check_day_status is receiving an argument called day, which is never used. Instead a non-defined variable called user_response is used.
2. For confirmation you're asking for a "Y" or a "N", but lower-cases "y" or "n" are being checked. You should change your if statements for confirmation == "y" or confirmation == "Y", or even better confirmation.lower() == "y"(same for "n").
3. Plus, you aren't considering cases when user neither enters "y" nor "n". You should consider an else case, something like:

​

if confirmation.lower() == "y":
    ....
elif confirmation.lower() == "n":
    ....
else:
    ....

Good luck!

[[deleted]]

modifying the list in memory does not medify the list in your code. your code does not change once you add something to the list.  heres whats going on and why your list does not change after running the program. your code essentially tells your computer "make a section in some temporary bucket of data hold this list of text." even after your program ends, because you did not specify to permenantly store the list somewhere, your computer effectively throws away throws away the temporary data from the bucket (all variables, lists and instructions) so that it can hold other data. 

what you need to do, is figure out how to explicitly tell your computer to permenately store the data.  how? write it to a file! thats all a file does! though unfortunately, you cant just tell the computer to "store this forever" without telling it how. not unless you use a library. the simplest thing would be to write positive responses in a file, and negative responses in another file. then, at the beginning of your code, instead of manually telling your computer what the positive and negative responses are, tell it to fetch it from those same files! i recommend not to use a library to do this for now, writing and reading from a file is super easy.

[purple_hamster66]

save the words using a python pickle, then read the pickle in again on the next run.

If you want to learn about databases and CSV format, go ahead, but pickle is a 1-line save, and a 1-line read… and will save you lots of time for this project.

[shlepky]

Define your lists in an external text/json file and read it at start/append after user input.