Question

I was just wondering if I could remove some redundancy for a help function in a text-game. What I have right now is at the start of every function hint = 0, and hint is increased one every time an invalid answer is entered.

Here is what I have at the moment (inside every function):

hint = 0
    valid = False
    while valid == False:

        print "Would you like to begin?"

        begin = raw_input("> ")

        if "yes" in begin:
            valid = True
            print "Great!\n"
            start.start()
        elif "no" in begin:
            quit.quit()
        else:
            error.error(1)
            hint += 1

        if hint > 4:
            print "\nYou may choose from \"yes\" and \"no\"."

Answer 1

The following code use decorator to separate hint logic and command logic. Every command is handled by a function which can be decorated by Hint object.

When the function return False, the count in Hint object will increase and when it’s larger than the limit, it will print out a hint message.

When the function return a tuple it will be called by the main loop.

class Hint(object):
    def __init__(self, n, msg):
        self.n = n
        self.msg = msg

    def __call__(self, f):
        def wrap(*args, **kw):
            count = 1
            while True:
                ret = f(*args, **kw)
                if ret == False:
                    count += 1
                    if count > self.n:
                        print self.msg
                        count = 0
                else:
                    break
            return ret
        return wrap

def start_at(place):
    print "start at %d" % place
    return "start"

@Hint(3, "You may choose from 1, 2, 3.")
def start():
    print "What place will you start?"
    cmd = raw_input("> ")
    try:
        place = int(cmd)
        if place not in (1,2,3):
            return False
        else:
            return start_at, (place,)
    except ValueError:
        return False

def quit():
    print "I will quit"
    return "quit"

@Hint(4, "You may choose from yes and no.")
def begin():
    print "Would you like to begin?"
    cmd = raw_input("> ")
    if "yes" in cmd:
        print "Great!\n"
        return start, ()
    elif "no" in cmd:
        print "Bad!\n"
        return quit, ()
    else:
        return False

call_func, args = begin, ()
while True:        
    ret = call_func(*args)
    if isinstance(ret, tuple):
        call_func, args = ret
    else:
        break

Here is some test:

Would you like to begin?
> abc
Would you like to begin?
> def
Would you like to begin?
> 123
Would you like to begin?
> 345
You may choose from yes and no.
Would you like to begin?
> yes
Great!

What place will you start?
> 5
What place will you start?
> fg
What place will you start?
> sd
You may choose from 1, 2, 3.
What place will you start?
> 2
start at 2