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Python Python Basics (2015) Letter Game App Random Item

Kristin Lam
Kristin Lam
4,022 Points
Posted by Kristin Lam
Kristin Lam
4,022 Points

Challenge Task

Can anyone please tell me how I can return a character from "Treehouse" in which the index of the character is decided from:

random.randint from 0 to (1 - the length of treehouse)?

item.py 
# EXAMPLE
# random_item("Treehouse")
# The randomly selected number is 4.
# The return value would be "h"
import random

def random_item(item):
    item = "Treehouse"
    rando = random.randint(0, len(item) - 1)

    while True:
        return item[rando]

2 Answers

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 67,987 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 67,987 Points

Your code is very close to correct*. remove the line assigning item = "Treehouse". This overwrites the argument supplied by the challenge checker causing it to not get the expected response. The string "Treehouse" is only an example of the type of input the function can expect and not literally the exact input.

Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 67,987 Points
Chris Freeman
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 67,987 Points

*I should have said "close to passing" instead of 'close to correct". See Tushar Mehta's response.

Tushar Mehta
Tushar Mehta
495 Points
Tushar Mehta
Tushar Mehta
495 Points

Any particular reason for using while True: ? You should return random character straight away.