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Python

Posted by Henrik Christensen
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Henrik Christensen
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 38,322 Points

Gotta be a better way

Hi,

I'm trying to make some validation on the user input for my addressbook and it's working at the moment, but I have a feeling that there's a better way to do this.

Right now I'm using a while loop for each of the informations (first name, last name, phone number and email).

Any suggestions how to avoid spamming those while loops?

Here is the code:

        while True:
            self.first_name = input("Please enter the first name: ").title()
            is_name = re.match(r'[a-zA-Z- ]+', self.first_name)

            if is_name:
                break
            else:
                print("That's not a valid name!")
                continue

        while True:
            self.last_name = input("Please enter the last name: ").title()
            is_name = re.match(r'[a-zA-Z- ]+', self.first_name)

            if is_name:
                break
            else:
                print("That's not a valid name!")
                continue

        self.address = input("Please enter the address: ").title()

        while True:
            self.phone_number = input("Please enter the phone number: ")
            is_phone = re.match(r'[0-9()\-+ ]+', self.phone_number)

            if is_phone:
                break
            else:
                print("That's not a valid phone number!")
                continue

        # checking if valid email address
        # checking if the email is already in the database
        # asking for another email if already in database
        while True:
            self.email = input("Please enter the email: ")

            is_email = re.match(r'[-\w\d.+]+@[-\w\d.]+', self.email)

            if is_email:
                query = Contact.select().where(Contact.contact_email == self.email)

                if query.exists():
                    print("That email is already in use. Please enter another email.")
                    continue
                else:
                    break
            else:
                print("That's not a valid email!")
                continue

1 Answer

Tim Betz
Tim Betz
15,146 Points

I would suggest using functions instead of while loops, for example

def first_name():
            self.first_name = input("Please enter the first name: ").title()
            is_name = re.match(r'[a-zA-Z- ]+', self.first_name)

            if not is_name:
                print("That's not a valid name!")
                first_name()

You don't need to check if the name is valid again, you only need to go back to the top when the name is invalid. I would always try to use functions over these while loops because you can reuse them. On another note: in you first while loop you can omit the 'continue' because the loop will start from the top anyway, but it isn't that important.

Henrik Christensen
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Henrik Christensen
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 38,322 Points

This helped cleaning the code A LOT, thank you! :-)

I noticed the names would accept numbers as long as the names began with a letter, and the phone number would accept letters as long as the number began with a number :-p fixed this by changing re.match with re.fullmatch :-p