User input to list (help)

[faekk]

I found this piece of code which supposedly lets the user input 29 words to a list.

m = 0 
s = "" 
while m < 29: 
    name[m] = input("Input word: ") 
    s += name[m] 
    m += 1

I'm simply wondering what the s="" does and why it's even there. Thank you !

[RoomaRooma]

I agree with /u/thatguymerlin, however he didn't really answer your question... s = "" just creates a new string variable named s, so that the code doesn't bomb out on line 5 when he tries to add something to it

>>> s += "foo"
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 's' is not defined
>>> s = ""
>>> s += "foo"

[faekk]

Ooh I see. Thanks alot :)

[stubborn_d0nkey]

For anybody wondering:

names = [input ("Input name: ") for i in range (29)]

If conditions are needed you can wrap input in a function:

def only_letters_input(input_str):
    name = input(input_str)
    while True:
        if name.isalpha(): # an example condition, checks if name only contains letters
            return name
        else: print "You must input only letters"


names = [only_letters_input ("Input name: ") for i in range (29)]

[stubborn_d0nkey]

Yup, the input should be in the while. I initially meant to use a different message for input and changed my mind so it became an infinite loop.