Python - How to stop a number being added to my list - isalpha()

Question

I am making a hangman game and I'm mostly finished. I'm trying to cover some common errors to prevent players from doing silly things like...

Numbers are invalid. I have added str.isalpha(): below my input, and it correctly displays the message to the user 'Only letters allowed'. But then it adds the number to the list of incorrect guesses and uses up a life.

Any suggestions on the best way to handle this and also the best way to add future errors into this game based on player input.

Here is a snippet of my code, a lot of code, apologies.

`

while True:

    print("....................................")

    player_guess = input("Want to live? Then guess a letter: ")
    if player_guess.isalpha() is False:
        print("Only letters are allowed!")
    if player_guess in picked_word:
        # This if statement sets index to 0
        # and iterates through each letter within picked_word.
        # Then calls the function to replace _ with player_guess
        index = 0
        for i in picked_word:
            if i == player_guess:
                correct[index] = player_guess
            index += 1
        replace_blank()
        print(f"You guessed correct! {player_guess} is in the word")

    else:
        if player_guess not in incorrect:
            # Checks if players guess is already guessed,
            # if not, append to incorrect list.
            incorrect.append(player_guess)
            print(f"{player_guess} is not in the word, try again. \n")
            print(f"Your incorrect guesses so far: {incorrect}")
            replace_blank()
        else:
            print(f"You already guessed {player_guess}, try another letter.")
    if len(incorrect) == 1:
        print(
            "   _____ \n"
            "  |     | \n"
            "  |      \n"
            "  |      \n"
            "  |      \n"
            "  |      \n"
            "  |      \n"
            "__|__\n"
        )

`

I tried including the isalpha() method in the else statement of 'if player_guess not in incorrect' to pop the number off the list and display the error but that solution didn't do anything.

Answer 1

The issue here is the flow of your code. Think about your if else as branches of a tree.

Your current code:

    input                                                  
      |                                                    
      v                                                    
 not isalpha                                               
   |        |                                              
   v        v                                              
  no      yes -> print message                             
   |         |                                             
   v         v                                             
  guess in answer                                          
    |        |                                             
    v        v                                             
   no      yes - add to incorrect guessed answer           
    |                                                      
    v                                                      
   guess in previous guesses
        |                |                      
        |                v                      
        |        no -> add to previous guesses
        v                           |                      
   yes -> print already guessed     |                      
                  |                 |                      
                  v                 v                      
                incorrect guess length == 1 

Hopefully you can see that whether or not it isalpha, it will go through the next if else statement. Which is not what you want. So you should add a continue in the isalpha block which will skip everything and go to the next iteration of the loop.

    input                                                  
      |                                                    
      v                                                    
 not isalpha                                               
   |        |                                              
   v        v                                              
  no      yes -> print message, dont carry on, restart loop                             
   |                                                      
   v                                                      
  guess in answer                                          
    |        |                                             
    v        v                                             
   no      yes - add to incorrect guessed answer           
    |                                                      
    v                                                      
   guess in previous guesses
        |                 |                      
        |                 v                      
        |           no -> add to previous guesses
        v                           |                      
   yes -> print already guessed     |                      
                  |                 |                      
                  v                 v                      
                incorrect guess length == 1 

Other comments:

• instead of player_guess.isalpha() is False, you should be doing if not player_guess.isalpha() (use the value itself instead of checking whether it IS false)
• better yet, check if guess in string.ascii_letters if player_guess in ascii_letters; don't forget to import it from string import ascci_letters (or ascii.lowercase or ascii_uppercase)
• you can use a docstring to print the post

print("""
   _____ 
  |     |
  |      
  |      
  |      
  |      
  |      
__|__
""")