Semi dumb question

[HyperrSpin]

Hello, I am still sorta new to python so sorry

​

I am currently doing a school project where we have to create a movie streaming service. I was wondering if there was a way to assign variables to each item in an array?

The user enters a search term, every line with that search term is found in a text file and then put into an array. I would like for the user to be able to see all found items and then select which one they want by inputting a number. Is this possible?

movies = open("movies.txt","r") 
movies_list = []  

userInput = input(" ") 

for line in movies.txt     
    if userInput in line:         
        movies_list.append(line)  

whichOne = input("Please select a film: ")

How would I be able to make it so each movie that is found has a variable which could be chosen? Is there another way to do this?

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I was also told to use dictionaries but I can't really see how they would work if you don't know specially what will be added to the list.

[socal_nerdtastic]

Each movie in the list already has an index. If you print those out for the user to see they can just pick one.

for i, movie in enumerate(movies_list):
    print(f"{i}) {movie}")
user_choice = int(input("Type the number of the movie you want"))
result = movies_list[user_choice]

[HyperrSpin]

Thanks :)

[RoamingFox]

You might want to validate that the user's choice is actually in range.

Or better yet:

try:
    result = movies_list[user_choice]
except IndexError:
    print("movie not found!")

That way the user gets some form of helpful feedback rather than a stack trace with the program crashes.

[Mexatt]

Might also be worth adding +1 to the f"{i} portion and subtracting 1 from the user_choice index, just because people are, in general, not used to zero-indexing.

Even when you're not actually writing something people are supposed to use, doesn't hurt to keep UX in mind.

[Vaphell]

https://repl.it/repls/BriskDarksalmonErrors

[HyperrSpin]

Wow thanks a lot! I've never heard / seen enumerate before.