While loop not exiting after condition met (Ruby)

Question

I'm not a skillful programmer by any means, but everyone's got to start somewhere. I've been trying to make a (very) basic maze-type in ruby, but I'm having difficulty with the while loop not exiting.

Room layout is an upside down t:

Going north twice from the center should change @loc to 5, say "End", and exit the loop:

elsif @loc == 2
@loc = 5
puts "End"

But it returns to the beginning of the while loop, stranding the player.

EDIT: there's some confusion about the code, so I'm removing the block and pointing you to http://pastebin.com/EFWVBAhn

We need to see more of your code. What are your classes? Most likely in your cmd.go_north you're accessing the @loc field of cmd, not of whatever your maze class is. But we can't tell until we see the code. — Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard
– Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard, Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 23:35
How do you expect the while statement to exit while @loc's value isn't changing? Try checking the value of that variable at the beggining of the statement with a puts or something. — ichigolas
– ichigolas, Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 23:37
Please indent, especially when troubleshooting loops! And it never exits because @loc is never 5. But you haven't posted the code where @loc changes, so it's hard to say what the problem is. — Alex Wayne
– Alex Wayne, Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 23:38
I added debug code to my working copy and can confirm that @loc is getting changed. — flashgamer001
– flashgamer001, Commented Mar 4, 2013 at 23:59

Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-04 23:56:54Z

1

The line

while @loc != 5

is accessing a variable which is not being changed. The changes are happening to cmd.loc, which is not the same variable. That line needs to be

while cmd.loc != 5

in order to access the variable.

Also you need to quote your strings (e.g. if command == west should be if command == "west"); otherwise you're telling Ruby to compare to a variable called west, which doesn't exist, rather than the string "west".

edited Mar 4, 2013 at 23:56

answered Mar 4, 2013 at 23:51

Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard

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3 Comments

flashgamer001 Over a year ago

I did make that mistake with the strings, but it was corrected. I just forgot to recopy it.

flashgamer001 Over a year ago

puts @loc returns 5 for the expected space, so that should not the issue.

Reinstate Monica -- notmaynard Over a year ago

Where is the line puts @loc?

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