# The right way to hang a man

## Problem:

I have seen a few questions around hangman. Usually this is done in a very hackish way, which usually can not be generalized any further. My thought or question is about the creation of the gown, which is a central part in any hangman game.

I want to create the ASCII image below

 _____
|   |
O   |
/|\  |
/ \  |
|
----------


Where one "limb" of the stick figure should appear each time the function is prompted.

I also wanted to be able to specify both the height and width of the gown. However I was not able to scale the stick figure relative to the gown size. The code is provided below and I have two simple questions about it =)

## Question:

• Is there a cleaner way to hang the man? I feel my method is very barbaric (I used some black voodo graduate mathematics to get it to look correct).
• Is there a way to make the stick figure scale with the size of the gown? (essentially providing more guesses).

## Code:

from math import ceil

def create_gown(width, height):
gown = []
gown.append('{:>{}s}'.format('_'*int(width/2), 10))
gown.append('{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(
'|', 11 - int(width/2), '|', int(width/2)-2))
for i in range(height-3):
gown.append('{:^{}s}'.format('|', 20))
gown.append('{:^{}s}'.format('-'*width, 20))
return gown

height, width = len(gown), len(gown[-1].strip())

offset1 = int((-width+23)*0.5)+1
offset3 = int(ceil(0.5*(width-7)))
if attempt == 0:
return gown
elif attempt == 1:
new_line = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format('O', offset1-1, '|', offset3+1)
row = 2
elif attempt == 2:
new_line = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format('|', offset1-1, '|', offset3+1)
row = 3
elif attempt == 3:
new_line = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format('/| ', offset1, '|', offset3)
row = 3
elif attempt == 4:
new_line = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format('/|\\', offset1, '|', offset3)
row = 3
elif attempt == 5:
new_line = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format('/  ', offset1, '|', offset3)
row = 4
elif attempt == 6:
new_line = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format('/ \\', offset1, '|', offset3)
row = 4
else:
raise Exception("Ops! The number of attempts must be an integer from 0 to 6.")
gown[row] = new_line
return gown

def print_gown(gown):
for line in gown:
print line

if __name__ == '__main__':
gown = create_gown(10, 7)
print len(gown)
for i in range(7):
print_gown(gown)

• Do you mean "gallows" when you say "gown"? – kundor Jun 7 '16 at 16:08
• The most common, but not necessarily the right way to hang a man is to hang him the right way ;) – Willem van Rumpt Jun 8 '16 at 9:11
• I have rolled back the last edit as it invalidates Mathias' answer. Please see What to do when someone answers. – Peilonrayz Jun 8 '16 at 10:23
• This question has been selected as the winner of Best of Code Review 2016 — Best Title. – 200_success Jan 18 '17 at 19:11
• Woo!⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑⏑ – N3buchadnezzar Jan 18 '17 at 20:14

# Repetitions

All your elif share the same structure. You just need to ensure that the inserted pattern is always 3 wide and you can drop your offsets adjustments. The logical next step is to use a dictionary to store the pattern and the row for each attempt:

_GOWN_MODIFIER = {
1: (' O ', 2),
2: (' | ', 3),
3: ('/| ', 3),
4: ('/|\\', 3),
5: ('/  ', 4),
6: ('/ \\', 4),
}

height, width = len(gown), len(gown[-1].strip())

offset1 = int((-width+23)*0.5)+1
offset3 = int(ceil(0.5*(width-7)))
if not attempt:
return gown

try:
pattern, row = _GOWN_MODIFIER[attempt]
except KeyError:
raise Exception("Ops! The number of attempts must be an integer from 0 to 6.")
else:
gown[row] = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(pattern, offset1, '|', offset3)

return gown


# Calculus

You do not need ceil nor int to perform an integer division by 2. In Python 2, / is already the operator you need. You can also use // which is also the same operation. The advantage of the latter over the former is that the behaviour is the same in Python 3, whereas / will perform a decimal division in Python 3.

_GOWN_MODIFIER = {
1: (' O ', 2),
2: (' | ', 3),
3: ('/| ', 3),
4: ('/|\\', 3),
5: ('/  ', 4),
6: ('/ \\', 4),
}

if not attempt:
return gown

height, width = len(gown), len(gown[-1].strip())
offset1 = (23 - width) // 2 + 1
offset3 = (width - 6) // 2

try:
pattern, row = _GOWN_MODIFIER[attempt]
except KeyError:
raise Exception("Ops! The number of attempts must be an integer from 0 to 6.")
else:
gown[row] = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(pattern, offset1, '|', offset3)

return gown

def create_gown(width, height):
half_width = width // 2
gown = []
gown.append('{:>{}s}'.format('_'*half_width, 10))
gown.append('{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(
'|', 11 - half_width, '|', half_width-2))
for i in range(height-3):
gown.append('{:^{}s}'.format('|', 20))
gown.append('{:^{}s}'.format('-'*width, 20))
return gown


# Creation vs modifications

You're aware that you can create sequences of repeating elements using seq(element) * count. You can use that to create your gown variable by repeating the pole and then modifying the top two rows and the last one; it should be more memory friendly as the space needed to store the list will be allocated in one go:

def create_gown(width, height):
half_width = width // 2
gown = ['{:^{}s}'.format('|', 20)] * height
gown[0] = '{:>{}s}'.format('_' * half_width, 10)
gown[1] = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(
'|', 11 - half_width, '|', half_width-2)
gown[-1] = '{:^{}s}'.format('-' * width, 20)
return gown


# On modifying in place and returning a value

### and a bit about printing too

Your wrong_answer both modifies the gown in place and return the modified value. This is unnecessary as the caller still should hold a reference to the value (which was modified). When calling the code, you can have:

gown2 = wrong_answer(gown, attempt=3)


but

>>> gown2 is gown
True


So there is really no point in duplicating references to the same object. Instead, what you can do is preprocess the printing job, so you don't really need the print_gown function:

def wrong_answer(gown, attempt=0):
height, width = len(gown), len(gown[-1].strip())
offset1 = (23 - width) // 2 + 1
offset3 = (width - 6) // 2

if attempt:
try:
pattern, row = _GOWN_MODIFIER[attempt]
except KeyError:
raise Exception("Ops! The number of attempts must be an integer from 0 to 6.")
else:
gown[row] = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(pattern, offset1, '|', offset3)

return '\n'.join(gown)


Usage:

print(wrong_answer(gown, attempt=3))


# Exceptions

Raising a generic purpose Exception is bad practice, as it makes the except clauses trying to handle your code being able to catch more than they should. You should at least use a more generic exception (such as ValueError) or define your own:

class AlreadyHangedError(ValueError):
pass

...
...


However, there is something odd in the way you use your wrong_answer: the caller is expected to call this function using increasing attempts. This is the job for a generator. By turning wrong_answer into a generator, you can call it to create a generator instance and then call next on this instance (or let a for loop do it for you) to get the next gown to print:

def wrong_answer(width, height):
gown = create_gown(width, height)
offset1 = (23 - width) // 2 + 1
offset3 = (width - 6) // 2

yield '\n'.join(gown)
for attempt in range(1, 7):
pattern, row = _GOWN_MODIFIER[attempt]
gown[row] = '{:>{}s} {:>{}s}'.format(pattern, offset1, '|', offset3)
yield '\n'.join(gown)


Usage:

for gown in wrong_answer(10, 7):
print(gown)


or, in a more real-case scenario:

def hangman_game():
while True:
status = manage_user_input()
if status == 'FAILED':  # Whatever
break
if status == 'COMPLETED':  # Whatever
return
print gown
print 'You lose'


# Magic numbers

create_gown seems to center the gown in 20-sized strings, but what if width is greater than that? At first, you should define this value and give it a meaningful name, and same for all values that derive from it; and then, you might want to take max(20, width) as a base for your calculus.

• Lovely answer! Are you sure about the  try: pattern, row = _GOWN_MODIFIER[attempt] part? It seems to catch every error, not just the number not in range part. About your comment on magic numbers i completely agree. I seem to center the gown in 20-sized strings. Is there a way to avoid that? I tried to base it of just height and width, however I ran into some issues. Would be great if you had any tips in avoiding the calculus bit (as it is both unclear what it does, and it contains magic numbers). Again great advice on the other parts! – N3buchadnezzar Jun 7 '16 at 13:33
• The try part is paired with an except KeyError so only attempts not defined in the _GOWN_MODIFIER dictionary will trigger your custom exception. The else part is executed only if the try ran without problems. – Mathias Ettinger Jun 7 '16 at 13:39
• Thanks! I also completely agree on the generator. I tried making it into a generator, but was not able to do so. Thanks for showing me the proper way to do it – N3buchadnezzar Jun 7 '16 at 13:41
• And for the width part, you should try not to center '|' in your intermediate strings. Something like ' ' * half_width + '|' should get you the pole and pattern + ' ' * (half_width - 3) + '|' would be enough for intermediate parts. Using format will also make it cleaner. – Mathias Ettinger Jun 7 '16 at 13:44