how to match users inputs with an external text file

Question

print("your first fruit is is:")
import random
with open('fruit.txt', 'r') as f:
    myline =random.choice(f.readlines())
    x = myline.split(",")
    print(x[0] +","+ ''.join(i[0] for i in 
x[1].strip().split(" ")))

this is the text file:

apple , green apply play
yellow , grape sofa pin
water , yellow green blue hello

my code would output a random line from the list e.g. line 1 so the output would be apple, gap

the user then needs to guess the output with the original line in the text file. what do i do next to do this? Help please i have no idea !

If we select the first line, shouldn't the output be `apple, green apply play`? — MaJoR, Nov 29 '18 at 14:48
no it prints apple, then the first letter of each word after the comma so apple,gpp @MaJoR — xxMagnum, Dec 04 '18 at 09:07
You mean `apple,gap`? Because after "apple" we have "green apply play" — MaJoR, Dec 04 '18 at 09:35

score -1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 29 '18 at 15:15

Taking in user input is always a little tricky because computers are very exact, while humans usually expect a bit of flexibility.

The first thing in any case is to get the user's input with input('prompt: ') (you can replace 'prompt: ' with whatever text you want to show the user. If you are using python 2.7, you should use raw_input() instead to make sure you get a string no matter what the user types in.

The bigger question is comparing the user input to the selected line. A naive implementation could be as simple as:

if input('prompt: ') == myline:
    print('success')
else:
    print('fail')

This might be a problem for users however who like to capitalize things here and there... This we can solve by just ignoring capitalization by calling myline.lower() and input('prompt: ').lower() on our string objects to convert all the upper case letters back to lower case.

Next imagine your user chooses to use commas vs. spaces to separate the words. You may eventually find it easiest to just explicitly tell the user they have to input their response in a fairly specific manner rather then going down the rabbit hole of taking in inexact input.

Finally if they get the answer wrong on the first go, is your program just over then or do you want to prompt them again? For this there are many good examples on this site, but I'll share this one: Asking the user for input until they give a valid response

how to match users inputs with an external text file

1 Answers1