Python index error for hangman game program

Question

This is a piece of the program for a game of hangman. I am trying to iterate through the hangman word and print the letter guessed by the user if it matches at that index. If it does not it will print an underscore. I am getting the following error for the second if condition: IndexError: string index out of range

while(guessTracker >= 0):
     letterGuess= input("Enter a letter for your guess: ")
     count=0
     wordGuess=""

  if letterGuess in hangmanWord:
     while count<= len(hangmanWord):
        if hangmanWord[count]==letterGuess: 
            wordGuess= wordGuess+ letterGuess
            right= right+1
        else:
            wordGuess= wordGuess + "_ "

        count+=1
    print(wordGuess)

vaizki · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-13 09:03:19Z

1

In Python (and most other programming languages) string indexes start at 0 so the last position is len(hangmanWord)-1.

You can fix it just by changing <= to <.

answered Dec 13, 2021 at 9:03

vaizki

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Atlasz · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-13 09:02:20Z

0

Try

while count<= len(hangmanWord)-1:

Because the string's length will never reach the real length (for example: if the word is "hangman", it has a length of 7, but the count starts from 0, and goes up to a maximum of 6, therefor not being able to ever reach the 7th char.

answered Dec 13, 2021 at 9:02

Atlasz

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Nimantha · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-13 12:33:28Z

0

String indexes are from 0 to len(string)-1; you just need to change your loop like this:

while count < len(hangmanWord):

edited Dec 13, 2021 at 12:33

Nimantha

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answered Dec 13, 2021 at 9:12

Ali Asghari

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liberforce · Accepted Answer · 2021-12-13 19:28:18Z

0

Indexes are 0-based so you index a string from index 0 up to len(hangmanWord) - 1.

hangmanWord[len(hangmanWord)] will always raise an IndexError.

You should also give a look to the enumerate function that can help with that.

wordGuess = ["_"] * len(hangmanWord)

for index, letter in enumerate(hangmanWord):
    if letterGuess == letter:
        wordGuess[index] = letter

print("".join(wordGuess))

edited Dec 13, 2021 at 19:28

answered Dec 13, 2021 at 9:11

liberforce

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