Question

I am working on exercise 2.1 on homework 2.0. We are being asked to write a function that takes parameters instead of asking for user input for our Rock, Paper, Scissors program. I created the following function but I can't capture the return value and was wondering if you could help

function:
def p1(x):
if x == 'rock' or x == 'scissors' or x == 'paper':
return x
else:
print "still trying"


and I call it this way
p1('rock')

I want to take the results of return x and put that into a variable called player_a and I can't make it work. I feel so dense thi

Answer 1

Try

player_a = p1('rock')

But that would just print 'rock'?

Answer 2

yes, I did that and discovered that it does just as you said .. it prints rock regardless of how I call the function.

Answer 3

Well it would print 'paper' if you said:
player_a = p1('paper')
print player_a

Your game of Rock Paper Scissors will need 2 arguments though. Player 1's and Player 2' choice. These 2 need to be compared and the winner decided.

def rps(player_1, player_2):
#do logic against choices here
#return the winner

winner = rps('rock', 'paper)
print winner


Something to that effect. Hope this helps somewhat.

Answer 4

it must return a value either way:
def f(x):
if x == 'rock' or x == 'stone':
return x
else:
return 'not'

Answer 5

Thanks Andrew and Snark. I am going to rethink my approach based on Andrew's comments. I think the problem I am struggling with is the fact that rock, paper or scissors are strings and when I call the function, I call it as rps('rock') or rps('paper'), etc.

Answer 6

you can use random:

function:
return random(rock,scissor,paper)

you can call it this way:
function(rand)

if that make sense. I hope that was helpful