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Python

Posted by Ruslan Tleubergen
Ruslan Tleubergen
Courses Plus Student 1,040 Points

Magic 8 ball code not working?

import random

fortunes = [
  "No"
  "Yes"
  "Maybe"
  "Soon"
  "Probably not"
  "Perhaps"
  "Of Course"
  "Yeah!"
]

def game():
  choice_fortune = random.choice(fortunes)
while 1 > 0:
    user_input = input('Welcome to Magic 8 ball! ' "Ask a Question or type 'Quit' to quit. ")
    if user_input == 'Quit':
      break
    else:
      print(choice_fortune)

it shows this error: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "python.py", line 21, in <module>
print(choice_fortune)
NameError: name 'choice_fortune' is not defined

1 Answer

dojewqveaq
dojewqveaq
11,393 Points
dojewqveaq
dojewqveaq
11,393 Points

Hey Ruslan!

The problem here is with indentation. By not indenting the while block, it's beeing used outside of the function, while the choice_fortune variable is inside the function. So choice_fortune is a local variable, hence, can't be called outside the function. Try to fix your indentation and your code will work, it will not return the expected output though, because while 1 > 0 always evaluates to true, so it will print every item in the list. Here is how your code should look like:

import random

fortunes = [
  "No"
  "Yes"
  "Maybe"
  "Soon"
  "Probably not"
  "Perhaps"
  "Of Course"
  "Yeah!"
]

def game():
    choice_fortune = random.choice(fortunes)
    while 1 > 0:
        user_input = input('Welcome to Magic 8 ball! ' "Ask a Question or type 'Quit' to quit. ")
        if user_input == 'Quit':
          break
        else:
          print(choice_fortune)

game()

And here is how I would solve this:

import random

fortunes = [
  "No"
  "Yes"
  "Maybe"
  "Soon"
  "Probably not"
  "Perhaps"
  "Of Course"
  "Yeah!"
]

def game():
    choice_fortune = random.choice(fortunes)
    user_input = input('Welcome to Magic 8 ball! ' "Ask a Question or type 'Quit' to quit. ")
    if user_input == 'Quit':
        break
    else:
        print(choice_fortune)

game()