Question

I have a hangman type game which displays the secret string as dashes.

So in this case, the secret string is ‘+*794242’, which will first be displayed as ‘——–‘. Now, the takeguess function takes the guessed number and replaces the correct corresponding dash with it. This works for the initial guess, but any gueses afterwards makes the partial variable longer (partial displays the guesses and dashes, ex: ‘–7-4-4-‘).

I began by splitting it to see if it’s the initial guess where partial is blank. I’m not sure why it keeps making the partial string longer after each guess. You’ll see what I mean! Also, if there’s any other better way to do this, I’d like to know after I solve this problem! Thank you!

secret = '+*794242'
partial = ''
def takeguess(a):
    incomp = ('-' * len(secret))    #Dashes
    if partial == '':        # If just starting (first guess), partial is blank
        for i in range(0,len(secret)):
            if guess == secret[i]:
                global partial
                partial = partial + guess
            else:
                global partial
                partial = partial + incomp[i]
        return partial
    else:       # After initial guess, partial won't be blank, this is where I need help
        for i in range(0,len(secret)):
            if guess == secret[i]:
                global partial
                partial = partial + guess
            else:
                global partial
                partial = partial + incomp[i]
        return partial

while True: #Example while true
    guess = raw_input('Enter guess: ')
    takeguess(guess)
    print partial

Answer 1

If you use a set, you could simplify even more.

 message = '+*794242'
 currentLetters = set()
 currentMessage = ''

 def takeguess(letterGuess):
   if letterGuess in message:
     currentLetters.add(letterGuess)

 while message != currentMessage:
   takeguess(raw_input('Enter guess: '))
   currentMessage = ''.join([l if l in currentLetters else '-' for l in message])
   print currentMessage

Tips:

• ‘partial’ was once a reserved keyword. It is no longer reserved, but it is probably good to not use it to avoid confusion.
• Never write the same code twice. That causes much confusion.
• When dealing with items which can’t be duplicated (characters, in this case) use a set, not a string.