Question

How do I make a list with only one pointer per cell? (I think that is the problem)

Thanks
ps if you are feeling nice, how do I take the spaces out of the print function?

class Board(object):
    """board of pieces"""
    def __init__(self):

        self.board = [['0']*7]*6 #6x7 grid
        self.board[3][6] = 8

    def printBoard(self):
        """Display the board array"""
        print self.board
        for i in range(6):
            for j in range(7):
                print self.board[i][j],
            print "\n",

0 0 0 0 0 0 8 
0 0 0 0 0 0 8 
0 0 0 0 0 0 8 
0 0 0 0 0 0 8 
0 0 0 0 0 0 8 
0 0 0 0 0 0 8 

Answer 1

You need to rewrite self.board as follows

self.board = [['0']*7 for i in range(6)]

Read about creating multidimentional lists in Python FAQ.

Here is an excerpt from the answer in the FAQ.

The reason is that replicating a list with * doesn’t create copies, it
only creates references to the existing objects. The *3 creates a list
containing 3 references to the same list of length two. Changes to one
row will show in all rows, which is almost certainly not what you
want.