[Tutor] Stuck on error

[Felix Dietrich]

"NZHacker1 ." <nikolausmz at gmail.com> writes:

> import random
>
> for i in range(1):
> RN1 = random.randint(1,75)

There is no point of using a for loop if you only intent to do something
once.  But looking at the following lines, it actually seems like you
want something to happen multiple times:

> for i in range(1):
> RN2 = random.randint(1,75)
>
> [...]

What you could have done here is to use a `list'.  Like so:

random_numbers = []
for i in range(5):
    random_numbers.append(random.randint(1,75))

You can then index into the list to get the individual elements. Indices
start at 0. e.g.:

random_numbers[0]

returns the first random number (RN1).  The last element (the 5th) in
this example has index 4.

> [...]
> z = 0
> Game = ('Game')
> [...]
> z = z + 1
> [...]
> Game + z = N1 + N2 + N3 + N4 + N5 + MB 
> z = 0

Here is the exception again:

> There's an error in your program:
> ***Cant assign to operator.(Mega Millions, line 47)

It says that you cannot have the `+' operator on the left side of an
assignment (that is the equal sign).

Game = N1 + N2 + N3 + N4 + N5 + MB

should work, though it might not do what you want it to.  Game was
initially a reference to a `tuple' holding a string:

Game = ('Game')

and is now an integer:


Now, I am not sure want your intentions with that line are (try to add
that when you ask a question, like: I have a problem with my program, it
does X (throws an exception, breaks, crashes) and I want it to do Y).  I
am guessing that you want variables `Game0', `Game1', ..., `Gamez' to
exist after it?  In that case a list is, again, what you want:

game = []
game.append(N1 + N2 + N3 + N4 + N5 + MB)

Now game is a list and, as before, you can access the individual
elements by indexing:

game[2]

returns the result of the third game.  If there has not yet been a third
game you will get an `IndexError'.  The number of games already played
is the length of the list and can be obtained with:

len(game)


Here are the links to the tutorial section for lists:
python2: http://docs.python.org/2.7/tutorial/introduction.html#lists
python3: http://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/introduction.html#lists




> while plays != 0:
>     Plays = Plays - 1

You are testing lowercase `plays' in the while loop's condition here but
are using uppercase `Plays' in the loop's body.

> z = z + 1
> print(Game + str(z))

With a list it can look like this:
for g in games:
    print g


> Line 47 in highlighted in red.
It is nice that you marked the line, but people prefer plain-text
messages on this list/group (html messages screw-up the code's
formatting, and for some their reader doesn't display the message at
all).  You can use comments with some fancy ascii symbols around the
offending line.


A few notes regarding the choice of your variable names:

  - all-uppercase variable names (FOO) should be reserved for
    "constants",
  - first letter capitalisation should be reserved for (something called)
    classes,
  - give them meaningful names

Here's some reading about the suggested python-code styling conventions
(you don't need to read that now):
http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

> I'm not finished with the program
Happy hacking.

--
Felix Dietrich