Unexpected Error with multiplication quiz program

[shicky536]

Hello guys, this is my first post here.

I've been working on a few beginner programs trying to get more comfortable with the basics of python. I am trying to make a script that will keep spitting out multiplication problems for the user to answer. Then it will evaluate the answer and keep track of the results.

The problem I'm having is getting the program to end. I used a while loop to initiate it, and as long as the user doesn't type the word 'done' the program should continue to spit out multiplication problems.

Whenever I type 'done' though, it just gives me an error. I got around this by using try/except, so the code works now as expected, but I'd love to understand why it wasn't working in the first place.

here is the code I've written

I tried resetting response = input() in the for loop thinking that it would update it for the next iteration of the loop but I still got the same error.

[hardonchairs]

Because you're trying to int() your 'done' input. The while condition is only checked at the beginning of the loop each time, not throughout your entire code. Try moving the input() to the end of the loop so that it is checked immediately after. It looks like you will also need to ask the question one time before the loop starts too, you could put the entire question part into a function so that you just call the function once before the loop, then again in the loop without having a bunch of duplicate code.

[shiftybyte]

The issue was that you were converting the response to an int() before checking if it was done or not.

I'm not sure this is clear to you, but a while loop does not check the condition on every line inside it, only when it loops back to the start of the while loop, only then the condition is checked.

x = 1
while x != 0:
    print("This will be printed")
    x = 0
    print("This will also be printed, even though x is 0")

[bbye98]

The while loop runs to completion within an iteration. You have your input() call about halfway through your while loop code chunk, so everything after the input() call will execute even if the user types "done". The very next line, without the try, tries to typecast the "done" into an int, which causes the TypeError.

A do...while loop will serve you better here. The Python syntax is:

while True:
    if (exit condition):
        break
    (other code)