[Tutor] What's in a name?

[Danny Yoo]

> it works fine, but if I run it after I've loaded it (by candl(100) at the
> prompt, for example), it is way off: something isn't being reset, and I'm
> sure it'd be obvious to someone,

It's due to global variable mutation.  Note that summarize_game()
mutates game_nums, which is either chutes or ladders.  Basically, it
writes all over the structure of the game board, which means
subsequent play throughs are a wash.  :P

And you know this, from your comment:

> Yes, game_array was left over, sorry. But chutes and ladders are
> dictionaries that should remain unchanged, for the purpose of
> future games.

But to be fair, this problem was also present in the original version
of the code, before my meddling.


This is relatively straightforward to fix: just modify summarize_game
so it creates a fresh dictionary mimicking the key structure of the
entry points.  That way, it doesn't mess with chutes and ladders.

##########################################################
def summarize_game(game_name, game_map, game_index, garray):
    game_nums = {}
    for i in game_map.keys(): game_nums[i] = 0
    for corl in game_nums:
        for game in garray:
            if corl in game[game_index]:
                game_nums[corl] += 1
    print("total ", game_name, "= ", sum(game_nums.values()))
##########################################################


In the context of the full program, I now understand why you have "4"
and "5" as mysterious constants now.  Good.  It's due to the structure
of the return value of games.play_game().

#################################################
return [step, self.move_count, self.num_chutes, self.num_ladders,
self.chutes_list, self.ladders_list]
#################################################

That is, this awkwardness of indexing by number to get at chutes_list
and ladders_list is due to that result wanting not to be in a
homogenous list or sequence.  The return value there *really* wants to
be something more like a dictionary or object instead.


Don't have time at the moment to sketch more than that; must sleep so
I can work tomorrow.  :P