Question

I get the feeling this is probably something I should know but I can’t think of it right now. I’m trying to get a function to build a list where the name of the list is an argument given in the function;

e.g.

def make_hand(deck, handname):     handname = []     for c in range(5):         handname.append(deck.pop())     return handname      # deck being a list containing all the cards in a deck of cards earlier 

The issue is that this creates a list called handname when i want it to be called whatever the user enters as handname when creating the hand.

Anyone can help? thanks

Answer 1

You can keep a dictionary where the keys are the name of the hand and the values are the list.

Then you can just say dictionary[handname] to access a particular hand. Along the lines of:

hands = {} # Create a new dictionary to hold the hands. hands['flush'] = make_hand(deck) # Generate some hands using your function. hands['straight'] = make_hand(deck) # Generate another hand with a different name. print hands['flush'] # Access the hand later.