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akshaan Mazumdar
997 PointsNot Working. Why?
what is the issue with the code
# EXAMPLE
# random_item("Treehouse")
# The randomly selected number is 4.
# The return value would be "h"
import random
def random_item(box):
x = random.randint(0,len(box)-1)
return box.index(x)
2 Answers

andren
28,520 PointsThe problem is your use of the index
method. index
is used to find the index of a particular value in a list. It is not used to retrieve a value. To retrieve the value you can simply use bracket notation like this:
import random
def random_item(box):
x = random.randint(0,len(box)-1)
return box[x]

Mike Wagner
23,559 PointsThe index()
method in Python is designed to return the first index at which a member is found. This means that, in the way you're using it, you are assigning a random number to x
which is then being looked for in the string. This will result in a TypeError, since you cannot implicitly convert an int
to a str
. Though, ignoring that, if you were to cast the x
to string by using str(x)
instead, it's worth mentioning that you'll usually receive a ValueError, as you will not find the substring of a random number x
within a string "Treehouse
" or similar strings. In your case, what the Challenge is actually asking for is the member value, which means you should reference your iterable box
and pass in the known index x
as it's parameter (i.e. return box[x]
).