Magic_8-Ball.md

Magic 8-Ball

The Magic 8-Ball is a popular toy developed in the 1950s for fortune-telling or advice seeking.

Write a Python program that can answer any “Yes” or “No” question with a different fortune each time it executes.

1. Declare a variable name and assign it to the name of the person who will be asking the Magic 8-Ball.

2. Next, declare a variable question, and assign to a “Yes” or “No” question you’d like to ask the Magic 8-Ball.

3. We want to store the answer of the Magic 8-Ball in another variable, which we’ll call answer. For now, assign this variable to an empty string.

Generating a random number

4. In order for the answer to be different each time we run the program, we will utilize randomly generated values. In Python, we can use the .randint() function from the random module to generate a random number from a range. But first, let’s import this module so we can use its functions. Add this line of code to the top of your program.

import random

5. Next, we’ll create a variable to store the randomly generated value. Declare a variable called random_number, and assign it to the function call: random.randint(1, 9) which will generate a random number between 1 (inclusive) and 9 (inclusive).

Next, add a print() statement that outputs the value of random_number, and run the program several times to ensure random values are being generated as expected. Once you’re sure this is working as we expected, feel free to comment out this print() statement.

Control Flow

6. Now that we’ve declared all the variables needed, it’s time to implement the core logic of our program! For this section, we’ll be utilizing control flow using an if/elif/else statement to assign different answers for each randomly generated value. First, write an if statement where if the random_number is equal to 1, answer is assigned to the phrase “Yes - definitely.”

7. Next, write an elif statement after the if statement where if the random_number is equal to 2, answer is assigned to the phrase “It is decidedly so”.

Then, continue writing elif statements for each of the remaining phrases for the values 3 to 9.

Recall that the 9 possible answers of the Magic 8-Ball are:

1. Yes - definitely.

2. It is decidedly so.

3. Without a doubt.

4. Reply hazy, try again.

5. Ask again later.

6. Better not tell you now.

7. My sources say no.

8. Outlook not so good.

9. Very doubtful.

10. Following the if/elif statements, add an else statement that will set answer to the string “Error”, if the number was accidentally assigned a value outside of our range.

11. Now, let’s see our program in action! Write a print() statement to output the asker’s name and their question, which should be in the following format:

[Name] asks: [Question] For example, when we run the program, the output should look something like: Joe asks: Will I win the lottery?

10. Add a second print() statement that will output the Magic 8-Ball’s answer in the following format:

Magic 8-Ball's answer: [answer] For example, when running the program it should look something like: Magic 8-Ball's answer: My sources say no

11. Great job! You’ve successfully utilized your knowledge of conditionals and previous fundamental Python concepts to create a program that generates different fortunes. Run your program several times to see that it’s working as expected.

Optional Challenges

12. If you’re up for some more challenges, try implementing the following features to your program.

So far, the Magic 8-Ball provides 9 possible fortunes. Try to add a few more possible answers to the program. To do this, you will need to increase the range of randomly generated numbers and add additional elif statements for each new answer.

13. What if the asker does not provide a name, such that the value of name is an empty string? If the name string is empty, the output of the program looks like the following:

asks: Will I win the lottery? Magic 8 Ball's answer: Outlook not so good As you can see, the formatting of the output can use some improvement when there is no name provided.

We can address this by printing out just the question, such that it looks like the following:

Question: Will I win the lottery? Magic 8-Ball's answer: Outlook not so good. You can implement this by creating an if/else statement such that: If the name is an empty string, it will only print the question. Else, the player’s name and question are both printed.

14. What if the question string is empty? If the user does not provide any question, then the Magic 8-Ball cannot provide a fortune, otherwise, the fabric of reality is at risk! To ensure that the fabric of reality is safe, we can create an if/else statement where:

If the question is an empty string, print out a message to the user. Else, print the name and question, with the Magic 8-Ball’s answer.