Beginner word-guessing game

Question

The aim is to guess a four letter string. Each letter can be tried four times. If the letter cannot be guessed, we go to the next letter until the fourth letter is reached.

I looked at my code and even though I'm satisfied because I've done everything by myself, I'm wondering how I can improve it. I'm probably relying too much on if but so far. I do not have ideas on what I can do to make it leaner.

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-


def typeYourword():
  global yourword
  yourword= raw_input("type your word \n")
  while len(yourword)<4 or len(yourword)>4:
    yourword= raw_input("type your word again \n")
  else:
    print("Now your word : ",yourword," has the correct format")
    return yourword



#yourword='tata'


def monMot(tonmot):
    global var_glob
    var_glob=list(tonmot)
    return var_glob


def comptage(monmot):
    global var_comptage
    var_comptage = 0
    for cpte in range(0,(len(monmot))):
      print("this is your " + str(cpte+1) + " letter")
      for count in range(1,5):
        comptage_mot=cpte+1
        b = raw_input("Type your letter \n")
        while len(b)>1 or len(b)==0:
          b=raw_input("type your letter again \n")
        else: 
          if var_glob[cpte] == b and comptage_mot<4: 
            var_comptage+=1
            print ("yes")
            break
          elif var_glob[cpte] == b and comptage_mot==4:
            var_comptage+=1
            print ("You won. End of game")
            break
          else:
            if count == 4 and comptage_mot<4:
              print("this was your "+str(count)+ " last try for the "+str(comptage_mot)+" letter. let's go to the next letter")
            elif count == 4 and comptage_mot==4:
              print("this was your last try for the word. You guessed "+str(count)+ " letters. End of game.")
            else:
              print("wrong letter, try again" + " ,this was your " + str(count) + " try. Now your " +str(count+1) + " try")
    print(var_comptage)         



typeYourword()
monMot(yourword) 
comptage(var_glob)

Answer 1

Your game is in English, but your function and variable names are partly in French. Consistency is important when writing code, especially if you share it with others around the world (like you did when posting it here). Consider sticking to English for everything.

I'm not saying global is evil, but it has been known to cause problems for people who are still learning the basics of a language. It works, but it's often not the best way. On top of all, it's not necessary if you re-structure your code. The preferred way is using an Object-Oriented approach (read more about here).

Consider placing the body of your script in a main function.

def main():

    typeYourword()
    monMot(yourword) 
    comptage(var_glob)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

This will come in handy if you ever decide to import this code as a module into another script.

I already mentioned your function and variable naming, but there's another thing to consider. When in doubt, it doesn't hurt to follow a style guide. Python has a well-known style guide that is followed by many: PEP8 You can check for some of the style violations (like not leaving enough space between operators and variables) here.

Lines like:

comptage_mot=cpte+1

Turn into:

comptage_mot = cpte + 1

Which are more readable. Python likes spaces, use them. Function names go in snake_case: lower-case with words separated by underscores. You can read all about it in the PEP8, definitely worth a read.

Answer 2

Firstly, your function names do not conform to standards. For example, typeYourword should be typeYourWord, thought I'd suggest actually using something similar to inputWord, so the verb is related to what the program does rather than the user.

You should read PEP 8, or set your GUI (If you are using one) to warn you of violations of the standard. For example, you are missing a lot of spaces around your operators. For example, b=raw_input("type your letter again \n") should be b = raw_input("type your letter again \n").

Your indent length varies between different functions making the code a bit harder to reason about.

The use of global variables is frowned upon. You are already returning the variable from typeYourword, so consider storing this in a variable and passing it into the other functions. For example:

word = typeYourword()
monmot(word)

monmot appears to have no function, as strings can already be indexed, though perhaps I am not seeing something there.

You do checks for greater than or less than when you could just be using the != operator to check for inequality (while len(yourword) != 4)

Code that is run when the module is loaded directly (the last three lines) should be contained within a check for __name__ == "__main__"

You do not need the else clause on the while loops, this is mainly for complicated loops involving break statements, and you can just outdent your code:

  while len(yourword)<4 or len(yourword)>4:
    yourword= raw_input("type your word again \n")
  print("Now your word : ",yourword," has the correct format")
  return yourword

Hopefully this can help you, and comment if you want anything I've said to be clarified