🔒 Hang man game: While loop problem in python (please help!) | Python | Page 1

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 1:59 AM

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I'm pretty new to pythn and still learning. So basically, I was trying to make hang man but like what I want is for the user to guess a letter and it'll show and keep it then it'll ask again the same question (Guess a letter) then either if it is wrong/right it'll ask until all the lives are lost or you when without losing 6 lives. But I can't seem to get the while loop to do this for me.

bitter egretBOT Jul 18, 2025, 1:59 AM

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drifting iron I'm pretty new to pythn and still learning. So basically, I was trying to make h...

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@drifting iron

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maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:00 AM

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!paste

bitter egretBOT Jul 18, 2025, 2:00 AM

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Pasting large amounts of code

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drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:01 AM

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do you mind if i can talk in dm's?

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this issue is kind of annoying 😭

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:01 AM

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Better to talk here.

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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Alright 👍

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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drifting iron do you mind if i can talk in dm's?

the main goal of this server is to help

bitter egretBOT Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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Hey @drifting iron!

Please edit your message to use a code block

You are using the wrong character instead of backticks. Use ```, not '''.

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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put it in a pastebin as linked

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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Ohhh

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https://paste.pythondiscord.com/72VQ

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there we go

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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now delete your other msg

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:02 AM

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alright

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:03 AM

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Right. So you've having trouble writing a while loop for the guess input?

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:04 AM

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oh btw you can do

placeholder = "_" * len(chosen_word)

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:04 AM

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I'm kind of not sure but my code so far works. I just want it to ask me to put another input in until I either loose all my lives or win the game and I also want it to keep the letter I am currently guessing and not entirly change it and delete all the stuff I made progress on earlier

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:04 AM

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maiden bough oh btw you can do ```py placeholder = "_" * len(chosen_word) ```

oh what does the multiplication sign do?

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or exponent*

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:04 AM

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It multiplies the "_"

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:04 AM

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multiplies...

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exponent in Python is **

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:05 AM

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ohh my bad apostrophy*

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:05 AM

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?

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:05 AM

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Thopugh the code as written fills in the guessed letters, so the full length "_"* doesn't really work.

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Anyway, it sounds like you want to wrap the entire bottom of the script from the guess = line downward in a while loop, to keep guessing?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:06 AM

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maiden bough ?

aterick 😭*

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:06 AM

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drifting iron aterick 😭*

asterisk

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can also call it a star

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:06 AM

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lone depot Anyway, it sounds like you want to wrap the entire bottom of the script from the...

yes yes

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then afterwards I'm planning to use if functions to end the loop when I lose all my lives or when all "_" is filled up with charaters

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:07 AM

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You can, with a little work, put all that in the while condition.

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A while loop runs while its condition is true.

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So make the condition express "when can the user guess again?"

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Sounds like:

lives not used up
word not fully guessed

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Can you write those 2 conditions?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:09 AM

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I'm not sure how too... can you by chance give me some hints?

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:09 AM

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Do you know how many lives the user has?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:10 AM

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yes 6 and I expressed it count -= 1 so everytime I get it wrong it deducts from count = 6

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:10 AM

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So they start with 6. But count expresses how many are left.

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So what would you write to test if the lives are not all gone? Or that they are all gone?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:12 AM

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a if else statement?

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:12 AM

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An if-statement can be used to test a condition. What about the condition itself? If you're happier writing an if-statement, do that.

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:14 AM

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oh so theres a better function than if statements?

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:14 AM

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drifting iron then afterwards I'm planning to use if functions to end the loop when I lose all...

if-statement. You will learn what a "function" is later

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:15 AM

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right now I only learned about loops and if else statments i'm kinda new

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:15 AM

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It's more what you intend to do. The important thing here is to decide when things should happen. So for a programme, that means writing the condition for something.

delicate echo Jul 18, 2025, 2:15 AM

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a while statement is better

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while the game is not over, ask user to guess

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:16 AM

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If the number of lives left is in count, what would you say in English about when the user may make another guess?

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:16 AM

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delicate echo while the game is not over, ask user to guess

We're getting to that.

delicate echo Jul 18, 2025, 2:16 AM

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kk

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:17 AM

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lone depot If the number of lives left is in `count`, what would you say _in English_ about...

if count is still above 0 then the user may make another guess?

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:18 AM

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Ok. Would that be count > 0, as a statement of what must be true?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:18 AM

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yes

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:19 AM

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Ok. So a while loop might start:

while count > 0:
    guess = ......
    ... the rest, indented under the while ...

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:20 AM

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yeah

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so uhm now what...

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:21 AM

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Well do that first maybe.

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:21 AM

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okok

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while count > 0:
guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
for letter in chosen_word:

    if letter == guess:
        display += letter
        correct = True
    else:
        display += "_"

bitter egretBOT Jul 18, 2025, 2:23 AM

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Hey @drifting iron!

Please edit your message to use a code block

```py
print('Hello, world!')
```

This will result in the following:

print('Hello, world!')```

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:23 AM

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the importance of using a code block is to avoid formatting in markdown

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(as well as make code easier to read by making it in a monospaced font)

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:23 AM

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is there a command for that?

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:25 AM

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drifting iron is there a command for that?

Put a ```py line above the code and a ``` line afterwards.

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:25 AM

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while count > 0:
    guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
    for letter in chosenword:

        if letter == guess:
            display += letter
            correct = True
        else:
            display += ""

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:25 AM

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tada

lone depot Jul 18, 2025, 2:26 AM

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Yes, like that.

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Seems incomplete.

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:26 AM

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I know what's wrong

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you copy-pasted from in discord

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instead of just repasting

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selecting and copying only takes the visible characters, not the ones that have been used for formatting

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so you are missing two underscores from the code

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to get the invisible characters, right click and do "copy text"

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:28 AM

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okok

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:28 AM

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I would suggest running your code now and seeing if you notice issues

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or get errors

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:29 AM

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________
Guess a letter: a
Guess a letter: a
Guess a letter: a
Guess a letter: a
Guess a letter:

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this is what happens

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:29 AM

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ok, so what is not happening that should?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:30 AM

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i'm suppoe to guess then it'll show if i'm right or not then replace underscores that contain the matching guessing number (Ex. a____)

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:31 AM

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so we are missing output. Now, add a print to do just what you described

neat widget Jul 18, 2025, 2:31 AM

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drifting iron I'm pretty new to pythn and still learning. So basically, I was trying to make h...

This is off topic and It doesn’t fix it, but I think use secrets module over random.

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:32 AM

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neat widget This is off topic and It doesn’t fix it, but I think use secrets module over ran...

there is no reason whatsoever to do that

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it's a game in the terminal, who cares if the words are selected not totally randomly

neat widget Jul 18, 2025, 2:32 AM

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lol

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 2:33 AM

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maiden bough so we are missing output. Now, add a print to do just what you described

oh alright alright lemme do that rq

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Guess a letter: a
Guess a letter: a
_a____
Guess a letter: a
_a_____a____
Guess a letter:

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now this is te output

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I printed the variable display inside the while loop

maiden bough Jul 18, 2025, 2:42 AM

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drifting iron ```py Guess a letter: a Guess a letter: a _a____ Guess a letter: a _a_____a____ ...

what issues do you see with it?

drifting iron Jul 18, 2025, 3:22 AM

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nvm I got it to work!

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count = 6
guessed_letters = []
while count > 0:
    guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
    if guess not in guessed_letters:
        guessed_letters.append(guess)
    display = ""
    correct = False
    for letter in chosen_word:
        if letter in guessed_letters:
            display += letter
            if letter == guess:
               correct = True
        else:
            display += "_"
    print(display)
    if not correct:
        count -= 1
        print(stages[count])

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that was lowkey tough to figure out

bitter egretBOT Jul 18, 2025, 4:23 AM

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#🔒 Hang man game: While loop problem in python (please help!)