Question

I’m writing a program that simulates a lottery game, and I’m stuck at a certain point. I’m trying to match the user’s guesses with the numbers on the winning ticket, but my function “checkmatch” apparently takes 2 arguments, but I’m only giving it 1? I know there are similar questions on the site, but I’m a very novice programmer, and the others seemed… a bit above me. This is my program in its entirety (thus far):

import random

def main():
random.seed()

#Prompts the user to enter the number of tickets they wish to play.
tickets = int(input("How many lottery tickets do you want?\n"))

#Creates the dictionaries "winning_numbers" and "guess"
winning_numbers = []
guess = []

#Generates the winning lotto numbers.
for i in range(tickets):
    del winning_numbers[:]
    del guess[:]
    a = random.randint(1,30)
    winning_numbers.append(a)

    b = random.randint(1,30)
    while not (b in winning_numbers):
        winning_numbers.append(b)


    c = random.randint(1,30)
    while not (c in winning_numbers):
        winning_numbers.append(c)


    d = random.randint(1,30)
    while not (d in winning_numbers):
        winning_numbers.append(d)

getguess(guess, tickets)
nummatches = checkmatch(guess)
nummisses = checkmiss()

    #print(winning_numbers)

#Gets the guess from the user.
def getguess(guess, tickets):
    del guess[:]

for i in range(tickets):
    bubble = input("What numbers do you want to choose for ticket #"+str(i+1)+"?\n").split(" ")
    guess.append(bubble)

#Checks the user's guesses with the winning numbers.
def checkmatch(winning_numbers, guess):
    match = 0
    for i in range(5):
        if winning_numbers[i] == guess[i]:
            match = match+1

return match

And this is the part that is giving me trouble:

def checkmatch(winning_numbers, guess):
match = 0
for i in range(5):
    if winning_numbers[i] == guess[i]:
        match = match+1

return match

And here is what I get when I try a test run:

How many lottery tickets do you want?
3
What numbers do you want to choose for ticket #1?
1 2 3 4 5
What numbers do you want to choose for ticket #2?
1 2 3 4 5
What numbers do you want to choose for ticket #3?
1 2 3 4 5 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:/Users/Ryan/Downloads/Program # 2/Program # 2/lottery.py", line 64, in    <module>
    main()
   File "C:/Users/Ryan/Downloads/Program # 2/Program # 2/lottery.py", line 36, in main
    checkmatch(guess)
TypeError: checkmatch() takes exactly 2 arguments (1 given)

Thank you for any and all help!

Answer 1

The problem is

nummatches = checkmatch(guess)

In your code checkmatch takes 2 arguments winning_numbers & guess but when you are calling it you are only giving a single argument.

Like for example

>>> def myfunc(str1,str2):
...   print str1+str2
...
>>> myfunc('a','b') #takes 2 argument and concatenates
ab
>>> myfunc('a') # only one given so ERROR
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: myfunc() takes exactly 2 arguments (1 given)
>>>