CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Michael Schultz
Michael Schultz

Reputation: 109

Pulling a random word/string from a line in a text file in python

I have a text file that has six words on one line, I need to randomly generate a word from that line. The text file name is WordsForGames.txt. I am making a hangman game. This what I have so, far. I am a little lost please help

import random
import os
print(" Welcome to the HangMan game!!\n","You will have six guesses to get the answer correct, or you will loose!!!",)
words = open("../WordsForGames.txt")

Upvotes: 6

Views: 31064

Answers (4)

Chinty
Chinty

Reputation: 1

shortest solution

import random
print(random.choice(open('file.txt').read().split()).strip())

Upvotes: 0

paxdiablo
paxdiablo

Reputation: 881383

It could be as simple as:

import random
print(random.choice(open("WordsForGames.txt").readline().split()))

The words are read from the first line of the file and converted into an array, then a random choice is made from that array.

If the words are instead on separate lines (or spread across lines), use read() instead of readline().

Upvotes: 5

Anand S Kumar
Anand S Kumar

Reputation: 90889

You can read a line from the file using .readline() function and then split the string into a list of strings, based on whatever delimiter you used for the the words in the line . And then random.choice() to randomly select one word from the list.

Another suggestion would be to use with statement for handling the file , so that with statement can handle closing the file automatically for you.

Example -

import random
with open("../WordsForGames.txt") as word_file:
    words = word_file.readline().split() #This splits by whitespace, if you used some other delimiter specify the delimiter here as an argument.
random_word = random.choice(words)

If the words are on separate lines, you can use .read() instead of .readline() as (with rest of the above logic same) -

with open("../WordsForGames.txt") as word_file:
        words = word_file.read().split()

Upvotes: 2

Thane Plummer
Thane Plummer

Reputation: 10208

Your line words = open("../WordsForGames.txt") does not read the file, it just opens it for reading or possibly writing if you add additional flags.

You need to read the line or lines using readlines(), for example, and then most likely split the words into a list and then randomly select one of the words. Something like this:

import random 

# get the first line if this is the one with the words words
lines = open("../WordsForGames.txt").readlines() 
line = lines[0] 

words = line.split() 
myword = random.choice(words)

Upvotes: 2

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