Question

I’m starting off with learning programming in general and so far the hardest thing for me to understand is how to get out of my loops the right way rather than using ‘goto’. I hear it’s bad practice. I know Python doesn’t have the ‘goto’ feature but if it did, that’s the only way I’d know how to get out of the following loop, no matter what language it was in. Loops confuse me. Also, I don’t like how much repeated code I use when I program but I don’t really know how to avoid it. Probably by using functions, but I don’t understand them all that well.

Could someone please take a look at my code and instruct me how to make this work properly? The only issue is at the end when it asks if the user would like to make any more changes and when I enter ‘y’ it goes into an infinite loop saying ‘Have a nice day’. I would like it to go back and ask the user to choose between options A B and C again instead. Everything else appears to be working. If you could also help me shorten my code that would be great. Thanks!

#Global variables
more='y'
#Enter your name
name = raw_input("What is your first name? \n")
##print('Your first name is ') + name
lastName = raw_input("What is your last name? \n")
##print('Your last name is ') + lastName
##raw_input('Press enter to continue...')
fullName = name + " " + lastName
nameList = list(fullName)
print('Your full name is ') + fullName + '. Would you like to \
edit your name? If yes, type "y" and if no type "n".\n'
ans = raw_input()
#Check if changing the name
while more != 'n':
    if ans == 'y':
        ans=raw_input('Would you like to A) change a letter B) remove a \
letter or C) add a letter?\
\n\n(Note: For all changes write the position of the letter to be affected \
starting at 1 and going from left to right.)\n')       
#If yes, change the name       
        if ans=='A' or ans=='a':
        #Change letter
            change=input('Which letter would you like to change? ')
            change -= 1
            ans=raw_input('What would you like to change it to? ')
            nameList[change]=ans
            #Change the name
            fullName = ''.join(nameList)
            #Check if you want more changes
            more=raw_input("Your name is now " + fullName + ".\n" + "Would you \
like to do anything else? Type 'y' if yes or 'n' if no. ")           
        elif ans=='B' or ans=='b':
        #Remove letter
            remove=input('Which letter would you like to remove? ')
            remove -= 1
            del nameList[remove]
            #Change the name
            fullName = ''.join(nameList)
            #Check if you want more changes
            more=raw_input("Your name is now " + fullName + ".\n" + "Would you \
like to do anything else? Type 'y' if yes or 'n' if no. ")           
        elif ans=='C' or ans=='c':
        #Add letter
            add=input('After which letter would you like to add one? ')
            ans=raw_input('What letter would you like to add? ')
            nameList.insert(add,ans)
            #Change the name
            fullName = ''.join(nameList)
            #Check if you want more changes
            more=raw_input("Your name is now " + fullName + ".\n" + "Would you \
like to do anything else? Type 'y' if yes or 'n' if no. ")            
#Otherwise say goodbye
    else:
        print('Have a nice day.')

Answer 1

I think that’s what you wanted.

The large change is that the variable more is set in the loop, right after the if block, so there is no need to repeat that part 3 times.
Also if ans = “n”, the program exits immediately (i presume that’s what you wanted to do).

from sys import exit


more='y'
name = raw_input("What is your first name? ")
lastName = raw_input("What is your last name? ")
fullName = '%s %s' % (name, lastName)
nameList = list(fullName)

print 'Your full name is %s. Would you like to edit your name? If yes, type "y" and if no type "n".\n' % fullName
ans = raw_input()
if ans == 'n':
    print('Have a nice day.')
    exit(0)

while more != 'n':

    ans=raw_input('Would you like to A) change a letter B) remove a \
letter or C) add a letter?\
\n\n(Note: For all changes write the position of the letter to be affected \
starting at 1 and going from left to right.)\n')       
    if ans in ('A','a'):
        change=input('Which letter would you like to change? ')
        change -= 1
        ans=raw_input('What would you like to change it to? ')
        nameList[change]=ans
        fullName = ''.join(nameList)
    elif ans in ('B','b'):
        remove=input('Which letter would you like to remove? ')
        remove -= 1
        del nameList[remove]
        fullName = ''.join(nameList)
    elif ans in ('C','c'):
        add=input('After which letter would you like to add one? ')
        ans=raw_input('What letter would you like to add? ')
        nameList.insert(add,ans)
        fullName = ''.join(nameList)

    more=raw_input("Your name is now " + fullName + ".\n" + "Would you \
like to do anything else? Type 'y' if yes or 'n' if no. ")