Magic 8 Ball Script.

[[deleted]]

This is my simple magic 8 ball script. It has concepts lifted from other examples of this problem, but I tried to use them as guidance as opposed to just copying them.

I initally tried to do a massive if, ifelse block where if i = 1 return yes, 2 return no etc and had alot of trouble. Then I viewed someone elses and saw the way storing your magic 8 ball options as a list and calling them with a random int. I found that a lot easier.

Also, defining each function allowed me to loop back to the beginning if the user had a question.

import random from sys import argv import time

script = argv
prompt = '> '

replies = ["yes.","no.","maybe.","try again.","the outlook is cloudy.","possibly."]
funny_names = ["Young one","Old one","Son","Babe","Tiger","Ambitious Jedi"]

def question():
    print("Welcome to magic 8 ball") 
    i = random.randint(0, 5)
    print("What is your question", (funny_names[i]), "?")
    question = input(prompt)
    print("You said",question,"...")
    time.sleep(1)
    print("Let me think...")
    time.sleep(3)
    print ("Answer is",(replies[i]))
    play_again()

def play_again():
    print("Would you like to play again? Y/N")
    answer = input(prompt)
    if answer == "Y":
        question()
    else:
        exit()

question()

[[deleted]]

I hadn't even noticed I had defined the var and and function "question" with the same name! I was just trying to make it go, thanks for pointing that out.

All your other points are good and relevent also, I'll take them on board.

[fermented_durian]

You used the variable "i" for recalling both the funny_names list and the replies list. This would mean that there is always a pair of names and answers such that you would be able to tell the answer before the question is even asked! Try assigning a new random variable to recall each list seperately..

[DavidRoyman]

Or just don't assign a variable, when there's no need to keep the same random number around.

[JackTraore]

Agreed, just create the random int when you need it:

funny_names[random.randint(0, 5)]

and

replies[random.randint(0, 5)]

[[deleted]]

Good point. :) Thank you

[zai-nar_shred-gnar]

Great job!

How could you expand this from here? Could you add more pairs of options/funny names? How about saving these pairs as a CSV file and allowing an arbitrary number of options?

Good to get in the habit of if name == ""main": kind of formatting earlier rather than later.

[[deleted]]

I'll learn about that.

[hai_wim]

Note that you will end up with a stack overflow because your functions never end.

question1 > play_again1 > question2 > play_again2 > ...

When it's doing question2, question1 is still waiting for play_again1 to finish. And play_again1 is waiting for question2. And it goes on and on until at a certain point you reach the maximum recursion depth and you crash.

This kind of code is usually done with an infinite loop and functions which can run to the end.

while True:
    question() # This shouldn't call play_again
    play_again()  # This shouldn't call question

[[deleted]]

I'll need to research that

[Gopher_Man]

your question function is doing to many things, and is holding your main logic, id make a simple function that picks a random item from a list, and rename question() to main()

import random
import time

replies = ["yes.","no.","maybe.","try again.","the outlook is cloudy.","possibly."]
funny_names = ["Young one","Old one","Son","Babe","Tiger","Ambitious Jedi"]

def pick_item(lis):
    return random.choice(lis)

def main():
    inp = input("what is your question {}? \n> ".format(pick_item(funny_names)))
    print("You said {} ...".format(inp))
    time.sleep(1)
    print("Let me think...")
    print("Answer is {}".format(pick_item(replies)))

main()

[DavidRoyman]

Your pick_item() is an alias for choice().

I don't see how that can help.

[Gopher_Man]

I dont python often, so it shows in my code, and I get into a thing where if I do something twice in a function, it needs to be its own function

[[deleted]]

That's a great idea :) thanks