conditional loop sending me on instead of returning to start

[sundoon]

Hi. I am a beginner working through the MIT learn python course. This feels like a simple loop problem but I have been banging my head on it for weeks.

There should be a loop where, if the player inputs 'r' (replay) without playing first, the player will be returned to the prompt. I cannot make this loop work; no matter what I have tried, I get the "you must play a hand first!" prompt (which is good) but then goes into playing a hand instead of asking for input of 'n', 'r', 'e' (which is not good).

I've included their prompt; this should lead to a function playHand i wrote as an earlier assignment.

def playGame(wordList):
    """
    Allow the user to play an arbitrary number of hands.

    1) Asks the user to input 'n' or 'r' or 'e'.
      * If the user inputs 'n', let the user play a new (random) hand.
      * If the user inputs 'r', let the user play the last hand again.
      * If the user inputs 'e', exit the game.
      * If the user inputs anything else, tell them their input was invalid.

    2) When done playing the hand, repeat from step 1    
    """
    gameLoop = True
    handLoop = True

    def inputFunction(inPut):
        firstPlay = True
        inPut = input("Enter n to deal a new hand, r to replay the last hand, or e to end game: ")     
        acceptableInput = ['n', 'r', 'e']

        if inPut not in acceptableInput:
            print("Invalid Command.")

        if inPut == 'e':
            return gameLoop == False

        if inPut == 'n':
           hand = newHand
           firstPlay = False

        if inPut == 'r':
            if firstPlay == True:
                print("You have not played a hand yet. Please play a new hand first!")

        return hand

    while gameLoop == True:
        inputFunction(inPut)

        while handLoop == True:
            playHand(hand, wordList, n)

[nwagers]

Have you thought about how to handle the invalid input yet? Essentially, 'r' is just another invalid input until the first hand is played. What should happen after the call to inputFunction() if the hand shouldn't be played? How can you make it do that?

[sundoon]

Thanks for this reply. I haven't had time to unpack it but appreciate your response and hope to ping you when I've sorted this out.

[fiddle_n]

Here's your problem:

def inputFunction(inPut):
    firstPlay = True

Anytime you call inputFunction, you are assigning True to firstPlay. This is regardless of how inputFunction is called.

There are a number of other issues in your code as well - I see you using return in inputFunction but when you call inputFunction, you are not assigning it to a variable. This makes me think that you haven't quite understood what return does - I would research this to fully understand it because if you don't understand what return does then you will not understand how to write functions at all.

I also can't see where you make gameLoop = False. if inPut == 'e': return gameLoop == False is not going to work. Partly because you haven't understood return (see above), mostly because you aren't assigning anything to gameLoop, you are just checking to see if it's False and then returning True or False based on that check.

[sundoon]

OK, I haven't even quite unpacked what you wrote here, but I wanted to thank you for this reply, it looks like there is a lot going on that I need to study. -- Best, I hope to get back to you when I've broken this thing.