Python: Why Does my while loop keep looping

Question

def guess():
    while True:
        try:
            guess = raw_input("Guess your letter")
            if len(guess) != 1 or guess.isdigit() == True:
                print "Please guess again"
            if len(guess) == 1 and  guess.isdigit() == False:
                guessed.append = guess
                return guess
                break
        except StandardError:
            pass

print guess()

this loop keeps repeating no matter what value I put in the raw input. Why???

Answer 1

Because guessed.append = guess wil raise an error every time len(guess) == 1 and guess.isdigit() == False is True and then the control will go to the except block which is going to restart the loop again.

If you've defined guessed somewhere in your code then I think you probably wanted to do this:

guessed.append(guess)

Otherwise define guessed first.

Answer 2

Every time you try to execute the line guessed.append = guess you raise a StandardError , so the line telling you to return guess is never executed.

To fix it you should define guessed outside the function, and correct the line to guessed.append(guess) .

Also note that the line break right after return guess would never be executed even if you fixed this bug.