defining variable names with integer values defined by user in python

Question

I am currently trying to write a simple program to calculate probabilities of possible combinations with dice of different sizes (e.g. : 6, 12, 4, 20). The problem i have is that it is supposed to be user friendly and work with ever int value the user puts. The problem i am having here is the following :

p = input('How many dice do you have ? :')

a = len(p)

x = 0
while x != a :
    x += 1
    (n + x) = input('What is the amount of faces of your ' + x + 'die ? :')
    # here i want to create a variable named n1, n2, n3,... until the loop stops.

Can someone help me find a way around this without having to import dictionaries.

You can create a list, l = list(), then use l.append() to store values — gogasca, May 12 '16 at 22:51
Why do you want separate variables n1, n2, n3, etc, rather than using a list, such as n[1], n[2], n[3], etc.? (Or better, n[0], n[1], n[2], etc.) Python is designed to do this, not what you are asking. — Rory Daulton, May 12 '16 at 22:52
Stop! If you don't know how to use a `list` or `dict`, spend some time to learn the basic of python before writing anything that doesn't make sense. In the code above, the line `(n + x) = input(...)` is definitely wrong. — gdlmx, May 12 '16 at 22:56
Also `len(p)` is going to give you the length of the input string (for numbers 1-9, it will always return 1), you probably want `int(p)`, being aware that it's going to error if someone provides a non-integer input string. — Brendan Abel, May 12 '16 at 23:00
i am sorry for my ignorance as i am only a beginner, Thank you for the feed back. — Gwendal Delisle Arnold, May 12 '16 at 23:05

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered May 12 '16 at 22:56

2

You can create variables procedurally by modifying the locals() dictionary.

for i in range(3):
    var_name = 'var{}'.format(i)
    locals()[var_name] = i

print var0, var1, var2
# 0 1 2

That being said, you probably shouldn't do this. A list or dictionary would be better and less error prone. For someone looking at your code, it won't be clear where variables are being defined. Also, it doesn't make coding your application any easier, because you won't know ahead of time what variables are going to exist or not, so how are you going to use them in your code?

answered May 12 '16 at 22:56

Brendan Abel

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everything is relative. And besides, that is what i am trying to acheive, the bigger the number is and the more variables there will be – Gwendal Delisle Arnold May 12 '16 at 23:27
1

@GwendalDelisleArnold: It's still a bad solution. – Matthias May 13 '16 at 07:38

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '16 at 22:52

0

I see what you're trying to do, but I am not aware of a way to create variables like you're attempting.

Instead, you could use a list, and append the user input to the list. Or you could try using a dictionary for similar results.

answered May 12 '16 at 22:52

coralvanda

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defining variable names with integer values defined by user in python

2 Answers2