I need advice with while loop in python

Question

I'm using python3 on mac. I'm currently doing a project. However, I was trying to use "while = True" to continuously use the program until a condition is met. Please, tell me what am I missing in my code. Thanks!

import json
import difflib
from difflib import get_close_matches


    data  = json.load(open("project1/data.json"))
    word = input("Enter a word or enter 'END' to quit: ")


def keyword(word):
    word = word.lower()

    while type(word) == str:

        if word in data:
            return data[word] 
        elif word == 'END'.lower():
            break
        elif len(get_close_matches(word, data.keys())) > 0:
            correction = input("Did you mean %s insted? Enter Yes of No: " % get_close_matches(word, data.keys())[0])
            if correction == "Yes".lower():
                return data[get_close_matches(word, data.keys())[0]]
            elif correction == "No".lower():
                return "This word doesn't exist. Plese enter again. "
            else:
                return "Please enter 'Yes' or 'No: "

        else:
            return "This word doesn't exist. Please enter again."

    print("Thanks!")


output = (keyword(word))

if type(output) == list:
    for item in output:
            print(item)
else:
    print(output)

Maybe what you should do is using isinstance() rather than type() to check your condition? Have a look at this: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/type-isinstance-python/. — dom_beau
– dom_beau, Commented May 22, 2020 at 11:26

Jake Tae · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-22 11:26:35Z

1

I think this might be the setup you are looking for.

def keyword(word):
    if word in data:
        return data[word]
    elif len(get_close_matches(word, data.keys())):
         correction = input(f"Did you mean {get_close_matches(word, data.keys())[0]} instead? y/n: ")
         if correction == 'y':
            return data[get_close_matches(word, data.keys())[0]]
        elif correction == 'n':
            return "This word doesn't exist. Please enter again."
        else:
            return "Please type 'y' or 'n': "
    else:
        return "This word doesn't exist. Please enter again."


while True:
    word = input("Enter a word: ").lower()
    if word == 'end':
        print("Thanks!")
        break
    else:
        print(keyword(word))

Looking at the source code and your question, it seems like what you want to achieve is basically to continuously accept input from the user until the user enters something like 'end'. One way to go about this is to separate out the while-loop logic from the function. The overarching while-loop logic is at the bottom half of the code, where we continuously accept input from the user until the user inputs some lower or upper case variant of 'end'. If this condition is not met, we proceed to printing out the result of the function call keyword(word).

Minimal modifications were made to the original keyword() function, but here are a few changes worthy of note:

The while type(word) == str is unnecessary, since the result stored from the input() function will always be a string. In other words, the condition will always return True.
Having return statements within a while loop defeats the purpose of a loop, since the loop will only be executed once. After returning the specified value, the function will exit out of the loop. This is why we need to separate out the loop logic from the function.
Although %s works, it's a relic of C. This might be a matter of personal choice, but I find f-strings to be much more pythonic.

edited May 22, 2020 at 11:26

answered May 22, 2020 at 11:18

Jake Tae

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2 Comments

Leo Over a year ago

Thank you for your comments. However, when I execute the program it keeps looping, showing the same result multiple times.

Leo Over a year ago

Also, I added an if statement so that my results wouldn't show as a list.

Andrea Pollini · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-22 10:49:27Z

0

You are using the worng condition.

type((3,4))== list

is False. You must use

type((3,4)) == tuple

answered May 22, 2020 at 10:49

Andrea Pollini

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