Basic loop and totaling positive inputs

Question

Consider:

print("Welcome to the number program")
number = input("Please give me a number \n")
number = int(number)
total_number = 0
entries = 0

while number > 0:
    total_number = total_number + number
    print(total_number)
    number = input("Please give me another number! \n")
    number = int(number)
    entries = int(entries) + 1
if number < 0:
    print("Sorry, this value needs to be positive. Please enter a
different number.")

if number == -999:
    print(total_number)
    print(entries)
    print(total_number/entries)

I'm in a beginners programming class, and the book is not very helpful at times. I'm trying to write a basic program that takes positive numbers, totals them, and averages them out at the end. It also rejects negative numbers, and asks if -999 is entered. I print the average of all entries, amount of entries, and the value tally.

The program runs ok, but it just doesn't write out some things I wanted.

Answer 1

From what you wrote and the comments in your code I am guessing that you want the program to continue running and asking for input if you enter a non-positive number. In that case I would rewrite it as:

print("Welcome to the number program")
total_number = 0
entries = 0

while True:
    number = input("Please give me a number \n")
    number = int(number)

    if number == -999:
        break

    if number <= 0:
        print("Sorry, this value needs to be positive. Please enter a different number.")
        continue

    total_number = total_number + number
    entries += 1
    print(total_number)

print(total_number)
print(entries)
print(total_number / entries)

Also, you can increment numbers with entries += 1

Answer 2

1. In most cases you should NOT create variables first, however this case you should. Create number = 0, tally = 0 and total_number = 0 first
2. Accept your first number inside your while loop and handle all of the logic in there as well.
3. Your while loop should continue to loop until the final condition is met which seems to be number == -999
4. Should tally be incremented if you enter a negative number? I assume not. What about a 0? Wrap the increment for tally and the addition to total_number in an if number > -1: condition. Use an if else to check for number == -999, and an else for handling invalid entries.
5. Finally, move your print statements outside of your while loop. It also doesn't need a condition around it because now, if you've exited your while loop, that condition has been satisfied.

Final note here, and this is just a nice to know/have and purely syntactic sugar, MOST languages support abbreviated incrementing. Theres a better word for it, but the gist is simply this.

total_number += number
# is exactly the same as 
total_number = total_number + number
# but way nicer to read and write :)

    print("Welcome to the number program")
    number = 0
    total_number = 0
    entries = 0

    while number != -999:
        number = input("Please enter a number! \n")

        number = int(number)

        if number >= 0
            total_number += number
            entries += 1
            print("Current sum: " + total_number)
        elif number == -999:
            break
        else
            print("Sorry, this value needs to be positive.")

    
    print("Sum of entries: "+str(total_number))
    print("Number of entries: " + str(entries))
    print("Average entry: " +str(total_number/entries))

Answer 3

I have rewritten your code. But I am not sure what the goal was. Anyways, if the value were ever to be under 0 the loop would have been exited and a new value would have never been accepted from an input. Also some things I have written more elegant.

print("Welcome to the number program")
number=int(input("Please give me a number \n"))
total_number=0
entries=0

while number > 0:
    total_number += number
    print(total_number)
    number = int(input("Please give me another number! \n"))
    entries += 1
    if number == -999:
        print(total_number)
        print(entries)
        print(total_number/entries)
        break
    elif number < 0:
        number = input("Sorry, this value needs to be positive. Please enter a different number!")