Question

I’m having trouble understanding the correct variable in the next_block(the_file) function. The program won’t work correctly if the correct variable is not indexed. Hence, correct[0]. So my question is why doesn’t it work correctly if it’s not indexed and why can it even be indexed if an integer is not subscriptable.

The text file it uses is this:

An Episode You Can't Refuse
On the Run With a Mammal
Let's say you turn state's evidence and need to "get on the lamb." /If you wait too long, what will happen?
You'll end up on the sheep
You'll end up on the cow
You'll end up on the goat
You'll end up on the emu
1
A lamb is just a young sheep.
The Godfather Will Get Down With You Now
Let's say you have an audience with the Godfather of Soul. /How would it be smart to address him?
Mr. Richard
Mr. Domino
Mr. Brown
Mr. Checker
3
James Brown is the Godfather of Soul.

And this is the code:

# Trivia Time
# Trivia game that reads a plain text file

def open_file(file_name, mode):
    """Open a file."""
    try:
        the_file = open(file_name, mode)
    except(IOError), e:
        print "Unable to open the file", file_name, "Ending program.\n", e
        raw_input("\n\nPress enter to exit..")
        sys.exit()
    else:
        return the_file

def next_line(the_file):
    """Return the next line from the trivia file, formatted."""
    line = the_file.readline()
    line = line.replace("/", "\n")
    return line

def next_block(the_file):
    """Return the next block of data from the trivia file."""
    category = next_line(the_file)

    question = next_line(the_file)

    answers = []
    for j in range(4):
        answers.append(next_line(the_file))

    correct = next_line(the_file)
    if correct:
        correct = correct[0]

    explanation = next_line(the_file)

    return category, question, answers, correct, explanation

def welcome(title):
    """Welcome the player and get his/her name."""
    print "Welcome to Trivia Challenge!\n"
    print title, "\n"

def main():
    trivia_file = open_file("trivia.txt", "r")
    title = next_line(trivia_file)
    welcome(title)
    score = 0
    # get first block
    category, question, answers, correct, explanation = next_block(trivia_file)
    while category:
        # ask a question
        print category
        print question
        for j in range(4):
            print j + 1, "-", answers[j]
        # get answer
        answer = raw_input("What's your answer?: ")
        # check answer
        if answer == correct:
            print "\nRight!",
            score = score + 1
        else:
            print "\nWrong.",
            print explanation
            print "Score:", score, "\n\n"
        # get next block
        category, question, answers, correct, explanation = next_block(trivia_file)
    trivia_file.close()
    print "That was the last question!"
    print "Your final score is:", score

main()
raw_input("\n\nPress the enter key to exit.")

Answer 1

After correct = next_line(the_file), correct is a string like '1\n'. correct[0] then gets you a string like '1', which you later compare to the result of raw_input, which doesn’t include a \n at the end. So you need to do [0] to get the first character out.

It would probably be better to use .strip() instead, because then it would potentially work for answers that aren’t a single character (if you changed the game to support 10+ answers, or answers with a different kind of name), it’d be a little more obvious what’s going on, and it would ignore spaces on the ends, which are definitely irrelevant in either the file or the user’s input.