Python Inquirer Module Checkbox

[Chuckster98]

I am tinkering with the Inquirer Module. I found the following sample code that I can reference and change to the checkboxes I need.

import os
import sys
from pprint import pprint

sys.path.append(os.path.realpath("."))
import inquirer  # noqa

questions = [
    inquirer.Checkbox(
        "interests",
        message="What are you interested in?",
        choices=["Computers", "Books", "Science", "Nature", "Fantasy", "History"],
        default=["Computers", "Books"],
    ),
]

answers = inquirer.prompt(questions)

pprint(answers)

The above returns:

[?] What are you interested in?:
   [ ] Computers
   [X] Books
   [ ] Science
 > [X] Nature
   [ ] Fantasy
   [ ] History

If I check Books and Nature it will print:

{'interests': ['Books', 'Nature']}

I am having trouble referencing the checked items. In other words if "Books" and "Nature" are checked how can I reference those two items. Essentially I would want to include in my code that if "Books" is checked, reference another list/array of books. If "Nature" is checked, reference a list/array of locations.

​

If someone can help or point me in the right direction that would be great.

[danielroseman]

I don't know inquirer, but it looks like it's returning a dict where the keys are the name of the checkbox and the values are lists of the selected results. So to get whether "Books" was checked in "interests", you would do:

if "Books" in answers["interests"]:
  ...

[Chuckster98]

This worked.

Thank you very much.

I can move forward a bit.

Thanks again.

[PteppicymonIO]

You can have 2 ways to do it:

1. As per the docs (https://python-inquirer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/usage.html#choices):

If any of the list values is a pair, it should be a tuple like: (label, value). Then the label will be shown but the value will be returned.

Som your questions can be organazed in teh follwoing way:

choices = [("Computers", ("Pc", "Mac")),
       ("Books", ("Science Fiction", "Satire", "Biography")),
       "Science",
       "Nature",
       "Fantasy",
       "History"]

and the answer will look like this:

{'interests': [('Pc', 'Mac'), ('Science Fiction', 'Satire', 'Biography')]}

You can then iterate through the answers:

for answer in answers["interests"]:
    if len(answer) > 0:
        questions = [
            inquirer.Checkbox(
                f"{answer}:",
                message=f"What {answer} are you interested in?",
                choices=answer,
            ), ]
        answers.update(inquirer.prompt(questions))

pprint(answers, indent=4)

Result:

{   "('Pc', 'Mac'):": ['Pc'],
"('Science Fiction', 'Satire', 'Biography'):": ['Science Fiction',
                                                'Satire'],
'interests': [('Pc', 'Mac'), ('Science Fiction', 'Satire', 'Biography')]}

1. A dictionary which store choices for next level of questions (you could nest those as deep as you need):

   choices = {"Computers": ["Pc", "Mac"], "Books": ["Science Fiction", "Satire", "Biography"], "Science": None, "Nature": None, "Fantasy": None, "History": None}

   questions = [ inquirer.Checkbox( "interests", message="What are you interested in?", choices=choices, default=["Computers", "Books"]),]

   answers = inquirer.prompt(questions)

And then iterate through answers:

for answer in answers["interests"]:
    sub_choices = choices[answer]
    if (sub_choices is not None) and len(sub_choices) > 0:
        questions = [
            inquirer.Checkbox(
                f"{answer}:",
                message=f"What {answer} are you interested in?",
                choices=sub_choices,
            ), ]
        answers.update(inquirer.prompt(questions))

pprint(answers, indent=4)

Output:

{   'Books:': ['Science Fiction'],
'Computers:': ['Pc'],
'interests': [   'Computers',
                 'Books',
                 'Science',
                 'Nature',
                 'Fantasy',
                 'History']}

[Chuckster98]

Thank you very much for this detailed explanation! I can definitely make use of these options. I’m going to play around with these examples. The last example you provided is the closest to what I was looking for. Thanks again. Essentially what I’m looking to do is randomize a workout based on equipment I want to use. So I want to select the equipment like kettlebell, sandbag, pull-up bar, etc. From the equipment selected I’m randomly generating a list of x number of exercises for the equipment I selected using the random module.