[Tutor] Python Programming exercise

[Wayne]

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Daniel Sato <sato.photo at gmail.com> wrote:

> <snip>

I have been able to make the module quit after entering a password three
> times, but can't get it to quit right away after the correct one is
> entered.  I know this is really basic, please forgive me.  I have no
> programming experience and have just started going through these tutorials


Let's take a quick look at your code:


   1. password = "qwerty"
   2. guess = "0"
   3. count = 0
   4. while count != 3:
   5.         guess = raw_input("Enter your password: ")
   6.         guess = str(guess)
   7.         if guess != password
   8.                 print "Access Denied"
   9.         count = count + 1
   10.         else:
   11.                 print "Password Confirmed"

On line 4 you enter a while loop. What criteria stops the loop?

As an aside - with while loops it's better to use a < or > (or >= <=)
comparison. Because what happens if something goes wrong inside your loop
and count becomes 4? Your loop takes a LONG time to finish! Actually in
python it probably won't ever finish. Also you should move line 9 either
right after line 4 or right after line 11. When you're incrementing a value
it's best to do it at the beginning or end of a loop. (and certainly never
in between an if and else!)

So with this in mind, what could you do once it prints "Password confirmed"
to make sure the loop ends?

HTH,
Wayne
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