Question

i want to create a list or a dictionary not sure which niether have worked so far
i need to convert text (user input) into numeric value and add them together
there are 4 possible answers
this is how i want it to work

each box contains fruit and are sold for differant prices

apple=25,oranges=35,pears=10,bananas=50,pineapple=40
totalprice=0
count=5
list = [box1,box2,box3,box4,box5,]
while count >0:
fruit=raw_input("what fruit is in ")(0)
count -=1
if fruit ==apples:
return "price 25"
totalprice=+25

i want this to run five times gathering the total price along the way

is there a away that whatever fruit they put in the corresponding value will be added to total price.
sorry if not explained very well new to programming

Answer 1

Firstly, it would make sense to use a dict to store fruit name – > price.

fruits = {
    'apples': 25,
    'oranges': 35,
    'pears': 10,
    'bananas': 50,
    'pineapples': 40
}

Then we create an empty list, and loop over the numbers from 1 to 5 (note that 6 isn’t included in the range)…

inputs = []
for i in range(1, 6):
    inputs.append(raw_input('Enter fruit for box {}: '.format(i)))

We then use sum that takes the inputs, and tries to look up the value in fruits…

print sum(fruits[name] for name in inputs)

Sample run:

Enter fruit for box 1: bananas
Enter fruit for box 2: bananas
Enter fruit for box 3: bananas
Enter fruit for box 4: pears
Enter fruit for box 5: apples
185

Other things you could do are validate a fruit exists before appending it to inputs – but this should be enough for you to work with for the moment.