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![Ali Khan](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8c1bbc76ceafcc03cfb2d88796d5997d?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fecs-static.teamtreehouse.com%2Fassets%2Fcontent%2Fdefault_avatar-445fbbabfc8dc9188fb5967fe43322ee0c3e0dd1e10f378bf8343784af5a13eb.webp&r=pg)
Ali Khan
5,229 Pointseven_odd challenge help please ("while" indentation)
I have a question regarding the indentation process in Python. I used workspaces to check my work for the even_odd challenge and found that indenting the "while" loop (including the "while start:") was giving me an indent error. I unindented it and it worked fine (see last code below). Here comes my problem:
In the letter_game refinement video Kenneth has two of the "while" loops indented after the "def get_guess():" and "def play():" functions:
def get_guess(bad_guesses, good_guesses):
while True:
# takes guess
guess = input("Guess a letter: ").lower()
if len(guess) != 1:
print("You can only guess a single letter!")
def play(done):
clear()
secret_word = random.choice(words)
bad_guesses = []
good_guesses = []
while True:
draw(bad_guesses, good_guesses, secret_word)
guess = get_guess(bad_guesses, good_guesses)
Why does the code work here with the indentation and not in the even_odd challenge? Does it have to do with scopes? I would really appreciate it if someone could explain this to me so I don't keep guessing when to indent my code. (As you can see below the challenge doesn't let me pass unless I unindent the "while" loop.) Thank you.
import random
start = 5
def even_odd(num):
# If % 2 is 0, the number is even.
# Since 0 is falsey, we have to invert it with not.
return not num % 2
while start:
num = random.randint(1,99)
if even_odd(num):
print("{} is even".format(num))
else:
print("{} is odd".format(num))
start -= 1
1 Answer
![Chris Freeman](https://uploads.teamtreehouse.com/production/profile-photos/1153532/micro_image.jpg)
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,425 PointsThere are three basic parts to indentation.
- Ending a line with a colon (:). This signifies that a code block will start with the next statement
- The codeblock below the statement with a colon, must be indented a uniform amount. Can be anything but convention is 4 spaces.
- Any statement that has a different indentation from the current codebock must be a newly indented codeblock, or line up with a less-indented line from an earlier codeblock (this closed the current codeblock)
See comments in code:
import random
start = 5
def even_odd(num): # <-- Colon - start new codeblock
# If % 2 is 0, the number is even. # <-- first line of codeblock established indentation
# Since 0 is falsey, we have to invert it with not.
return not num % 2
while start: # <-- Error: This change in indentation does not match current or previous codeblock
num = random.randint(1,99)
if even_odd(num):
print("{} is even".format(num))
else:
print("{} is odd".format(num))
start -= 1
If you remove the SPACES before the while
so it aligns with the def
above. all should work
Ali Khan
5,229 PointsAli Khan
5,229 PointsThank you for your quick response Chris. I removed the spaces (unindented) from "while" and it did work. One more thing that I do not understand which I mentioned was how the letter_game refinement had the "while" loop uniformly indented (4 spaces) and it was working but that same uniform indentation applied to the even_odd game would result in an unexpected indent error(I aligned the "while start:" with even_odd(num)). Similarly removing the spaces (unindenting) from "while" in letter_game refinement and aligning it with the def get_guess(): would result in an indent error. Basically having the same format of indentation (4 spaces) or not having any spaces resulted in an error for the even_odd game and the letter_game respectively.
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,425 PointsChris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,425 PointsThe difference between
letter_game
and the use here is where thewhile
loop is needed.In
letter_game
thewhile
loop is part of the function definitions so it's indented the extra 4 spaces. If the twowhile
loops were indented to match thedef
then while loops would not be a part of this functions.In this challenge, the
while
loop is not a part ofeven_odd
so it is not indented the extra 4 spaces.Does this make sense?
Ali Khan
5,229 PointsAli Khan
5,229 PointsYes, it does make sense now. After going through the examples again and reading your response alongside I got it. Thanks a lot! Really appreciate it.