Global variable not updated in while loop - Python

Question

I'm new to Python but I can't seem to figure out why the declared "attempt" variable is not decremented if an incorrect attempt is submitted.

My thoughts are once a guess is submitted if it's not equal to the correctAnswer then the variable attempts should be decremeted by 1 so the print statement would say "You have 2 attempts left.

# You have 3 attempts to guess the correct word.  If you don't you lose!

attempts = 3
correctAnswer = 32
while attempts != 0:
    guess = input("How old is Dad?") 
    if guess != correctAnswer:
        attempts = attempts - 1 #This should decrement if the attempt is incorrect
        print("You have " + str(attempts) + " left")
    else:
        print("You lose!")

print("You are right!")

Answer 1

The variable is being updated but you have a problem with the input comparison and your print logic is kinda backwards, making the output look strange. The input function returns strings, and strings are never equal to integers. You need to convert the string to an integer. That will fail if you are given bad input so you can either check the value before you attempt a conversion or use a try/except block to catch errors.

You could pull the final success/failure condition out of the loop:

attempts = 3
correctAnswer = 32
while attempts != 0:
    guess_str = input("How old is Dad?")
    if not guess_str.isdigit():
        attempts = attempts - 1
        print("Please enter a number, yYou have " + str(attempts) + " left")
        continue
    guess = int(guess_str)
    if guess != correctAnswer:
        attempts = attempts - 1 #This should decrement if the attempt is incorrect
        print("You have " + str(attempts) + " left")
    else:
        break
 
if attempts:
    print("You are right!")
else:
    print("You lose!")

But python while loops have an else clause that only runs if the while is not terminated with a break. Add a break to the success path and it will catch the fail path.

attempts = 3
correctAnswer = 32
while attempts != 0:
    guess_str = input("How old is Dad?")
    if not guess_str.isdigit():
        attempts = attempts - 1
        print("Please enter a number, yYou have " + str(attempts) + " left")
        continue
    guess = int(guess_str)
    if guess != correctAnswer:
        attempts = attempts - 1
        print("You have " + str(attempts) + " left")
    else:
        print("You are right!")
        break
else: 
    print("You lose!")