Re: Rock Paper Scissors Code Bug?

On 18/12/2025 18:34, Gregg Drennan via Python-list wrote:
> No chatbot involved.  I was typing this on my phone in bed last night and
> didn't have a Python interpreter handy that I could verify this with.  I
> will certainly check this.
>
> In any case, since verifying that a valid choice was made was made is done
> in the same IF statement as the check for None, it seems to be a moot
> point.
>
> Calling lower() on None will cause an Exception so I would always recommend
> making that check on any user input.
>
The `input` function always returns a string (`str`), so using 
`.lower()` or `.casefold()` on its result will always succeed.
> Yes, using casefold to deal with non-ascii characters is a good point.  In
> this case, we don't care what the input was if it's not one of the four
> valid choices...we just treat it as invalid and prompt the player to enter
> a valid choice.
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2025, 8:21 AM Thomas Passin <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On 12/17/2025 10:43 PM, Gregg Drennan via Python-list wrote:
>>> The other recommendation i would make is to shorten the response the
>> player
>>> needs to give when choosing their option.  "R", "P", "S" is sufficient to
>>> determine the player's choice.  Making the player enter the whole word
>>> introduces opportunity for misspellings.  I would also allow the player
>> to
>>> enter "Q" in case they decide to stop playing.  And always check to make
>>> sure the player entered something and didn't just hit enter.  Also don't
>>> use .lower() until you check to make sure you have a valid entry, the
>>> player might enter a character that can't be converted to lower case,
>> like
>>> a number or punctuation.
>> See, here's the problem with relying on a chatbot. Calling lower() works
>> fine for a character that doesn't have a lowerclass version.  It just
>> returns the original.
>>
>>
>>> while True:
>>>       player_choice = input("Please enter your choice (Rock, Paper,
>> Scissors,
>>> or Quit): "
>>>       If not player_choice or player_choice[0] not in "RPSQrpsq":   #
>> check
>>> if None or invalid choice
>>>           print("Invalid choice...")
>>>       else:
>>>           If player_choice[0].lower() == "q":
>>>                print("Thanks for playing.  Good-bye.")
>>>                break
>>>           # code to score the choices, blah, blah, blah
>>>
>>> Good luck with your new version!
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 8, 2025, 5:37 PM John Smith via Python-list <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the recommendations. I'm building a whole new version based
>> on
>>>> the old one, with simpler code and functions to find win stats.
>>>> --
>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/python-list.python.org
>>>>
>> --
>> https://mail.python.org/mailman3//lists/python-list.python.org
>>