On 11/21/2015 06:44 PM, Larry Hudson wrote:
On 11/20/2015 07:30 PM, Dylan Riley wrote:
i am learning python and was tasked with making a program that flips a coin 100
times and then
tells you
the number of heads and tails.
[snip]
<original code>
import random
heads = int("1")
tails = int("2")
flips = 100
headscount = 0
tailscount = 0
while flips != 0:
flips -= 1
result = random.randint(heads, tails)
if result = heads:
headscount += 1
else:
tailscount += 1
print(headscount, tailscount)
[snip]
</original code>
It doesn't run because it if full of errors, which have already been discussed
by others.
I just wanted to show you a (radically) different approach that you can study
(or not... your
choice). I'm leaving out your heading and just showing the heart of the
program. I am not
necessarily recommending this, I just wanted you to see a different way of
looking at the
problem. Except for the initialization and printing of the results, the entire
thing is done in
one two-line for loop.
<code>
from random import randint
# Put your heading text here...
HEADS = 0
TAILS = 1 # Note: Python _convention_ is to upper-case constants.
counts = [0, 0]
for flips in range(100):
counts[randint(0, 1)] += 1
print('Number of heads: ', counts[HEADS])
print('Number of tails: ', counts[TAILS])
</code>
Note that the HEADS and TAILS constants are only used in one place (the final
print functions),
you could simply leave them out and directly use 0 and 1 in those final
print()s.
-=- Larry -=-
I purposely didn't give any explanation of this code in my original message because I wanted to
allow people (particularly the OP) a chance to figure it out by themselves. But here's a bit of
explanation...
The counts variable is a two-element list. It's usage is, the count of heads is counts[0] and
the count of tails is counts[1] -- or equivalently, counts[HEADS] and counts[TAILS]. Both values
are initialized to 0.
The body of the for loop is the very terse (and confusing?) expression:
counts[randint(0, 1)] += 1
But if you break it down and look at the pieces individually, it's not too hard
to understand.
1. randint(0, 1) gives a random value of either 0 or 1.
2. counts[...] gives you access to the heads count or tails count (... is the 0 or 1 from the
randint() function).
3. counts[...] += 1 increments the appropriate counter value.
Broken down that way it’s not too hard to understand, is it? :-)
-=- Larry -=-
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