Python, I have a guessing game and want to add the number of guesses

Question

In the guessing game, I want the count to be the number of guesses variable and it to print the value when you win the game. Whenever I try to add the count = count + 1 line of code under the else part I keep getting loads of errors.

import random

from random import randint

secret = randint(0,11)
count = 1

def guessing():

    print ("Guessing easy: The secret number will stay the same every turn")
    guess = int(input("Guess a number from 1 to 10 "))

    if secret == guess:
        print ("Your guess was", guess)
        print ("Well done, you win")
        print ("It took you", count, "guessing to win")
        startgame()
    else:
        print ("Your guess was",guess)
        print ("Sorry, your guess was wrong. Please try again""\n")
        guessing()

def guessinghard():
    print ("Guessing hard: The secret number will change every turn")
    secret = randint(0,11)
    guess = int(input("Guess a number from 1 to 10 "))

    if secret == guess:
        print ("Your guess was", guess)
        print ("Well done, you win")
        print ("It took you ", count, " guessing to win")
        startgame()
    else:
        print ("Your guess was", guess)
        print ("Sorry, your guess was wrong. Please try again")
        guessinghard()

def startgame():
    game = input("Would you like to play easy or hard ")

    if game == "easy":
        guessing()
    elif game == "hard":
        guessinghard()
    else:
        print("Please choose easy or hard")
        startgame()

startgame()

The errors I get are:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "H:/Modules (Year 2)/Advanced programming/Python/Week 2 - Review and Arrays/
Iteration Exercise -  Secret Number.py", line 52, in <module>
    startgame()

  File "H:/Modules (Year 2)/Advanced programming/Python/Week 2 - Review and Arrays/
Iteration Exercise -  Secret Number.py", line 45, in startgame
    guessing()

  File "H:/Modules (Year 2)/Advanced programming/Python/Week 2 - Review and Arrays/
Iteration Exercise -  Secret Number.py", line 21, in guessing
    count = count + 1

UnboundLocalError: local variable 'count' referenced before assignment

Wild guess: `count` is a global variable, to update it inside a function use the `global` keyword. — Ashwini Chaudhary, Sep 26 '13 at 16:40
[Why am I getting an UnboundLocalError when the variable has a value?](http://docs.python.org/2/faq/programming.html#why-am-i-getting-an-unboundlocalerror-when-the-variable-has-a-value) — Ashwini Chaudhary, Sep 26 '13 at 16:44
[Local var referenced before assignment](http://stackoverflow.com/a/8934902/505154) — Andrew Clark, Sep 26 '13 at 16:45
Recursion is **very** bad here, as it wastes memory while giving completely nothing in return. In fact one could make the program fail by simply entering "xxx" instead of "easy" or "hard" many times — lejlot, Sep 26 '13 at 17:03
(not question-related, but how do you get along with all those spaces inside your paths?!) — whatyouhide, Sep 26 '13 at 18:50

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 26 '13 at 16:46

The count variable was declared outside the function that's using it. You could either declare that it's global, inside the function:

global count

Or pass it around as a parameter each time you call guessing(), as it's a recursive function:

def guessing(count):

Also, the code posted in the question doesn't show where the actual count variable is being incremented.

Python, I have a guessing game and want to add the number of guesses

1 Answers1