Python: getting nested while loops to work with boolean statements(beginner)

Question

Hi I am a beginner in python, and I was trying to create a program where a date is entered and displayed in a program

I tried to implement loops for when the user entered a number outside the limits. For determining the month the while loop worked fine:

month = int(input("Which numeric month of the year were you born in?\n"))
while((month <=0) or (month >12)):
    print("The Month must be within the range 12>= Month >0. Please enter the value again.")
    print("\n")
    month = int(input("Which numeric month of the year were you born in?\n"))

However, for the second part (below), determining the day, when the user inputs a value for the month of February, which is limited to 28 days, the looped message it shows is for a different condition (the third if statement in the day set) instead.

If you enter: 2 for month, and 30 for day. The message it loops is:

...30< month =<0

instead of showing:

28< month =<0

Can someone please help me figure out how to use the while statement properly?

My code is the following:

day = int(input("Which numeric day of the month were you born in?\n"))
while(month == 1,3,5,7,8,10,12):
    if(day <=0) or (day >31):
        print("For your selected month, the value for day must be within the range 31>= Day >0. Please enter the value again.")
        print("\n")
        day= int(input("Which numeric day of the month were you born in?\n"))
while(month ==2):
    if(day <=0) or (day >28):
        print("For your selected month, the value for day must be within the range 28>= Day >0. Please enter the value again.")
        print("\n")
        day= int(input("Which numeric day of the month were you born in?\n"))
while(month ==4,6,9,11):
    if(day <=0) or (day >30):
        print("For your selected month, the value for day must be within the range 30>=Day>0. Please enter the value again.")
        print("\n")
        day= int(input("Which numeric day of the month were you born in?\n"))

Note that I am limited to only beginner level python codes when using this. The most I can do beyond this is use for loops instead of while loops, but nothing more advanced than that.

The program should display the individuals birth date at the end of the program.

After you get to the issues avasal brought up, I'm not sure your loops will ever break either if the conditions are met. So, if you have while(int(month)) in [4,6,9,11]: it doesn't look like you have break here. — tijko
– tijko, Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 6:35
If I don't use in, however conditions are mostly met, I am just having trouble with the "while" condtitions overlapping such as I explained in my question. — SeesSound
– SeesSound, Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 6:42
give glglgl's answer a look. He lays an explanation about the while loop nicely :) — tijko
– tijko, Commented Oct 3, 2012 at 6:53

glglgl · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-23 05:25:32Z

You have too many while loops. Out of some of them you can never escape.

After you know which month you have, you should decide how many days you have in this month:

So you have

month = int(input("Which numeric month of the year were you born in?\n"))
while((month <=0) or (month >12)):
    print("The Month must be within the range 12>= Month >0. Please enter the value again."):
    print("\n")
    month = int(input("Which numeric month of the year were you born in?\n"))
if month in (4, 6, 9, 11): # short
    maxdays = 30
elif month != 2: # not February -> long
    maxdays = 31
else:
    # Here we could ask for the year, determine if the year is divisible by 4, by 100 and by 400 and with this information determie if we have a leap year, but...
    # we are tolerant for now and accept the 29 as well.
    maxdays = 29

Now you can work with what you have without repeating yourself too often:

day = int(input("Which numeric day of the month were you born in?\n"))
if(day <= 0) or (day > maxdays):
    print("For your selected month, the value for day must be within the range {0} >= Day > 0. Please enter the value again.".format(maxdays))
    print("\n")
    day = int(input("Which numeric day of the month were you born in?\n"))

If you haven't learned format() yet, you can do

    print("For your selected month, the value for day must be within the range " + str(maxdays) + " >= Day > 0. Please enter the value again.")

or even

    print("For your selected month, the value for day is wrong. Please enter the value again.")

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