Ok, it's a logic error in the while loop. Starting at the beginning: you can't compare the value of "password" until the user inputs the value, which is why it's requiring you to put password = "foobar" at the top. Otherwise, password has no value, and as far as the interpreter is concerned, it doesn't exist yet.
The rest of it is a logic error because your while loop is executing as long as "unicorn" != "foobar" and therefore it's continuously looping. Each time it loops, it asks for the password again, and sets a LOCAL variable called password to the new raw_input. Then, when you get to the third time, it does the "if current_count<count:", realizes it doesn't match, and skips the rest of the if statement, moving to the else. When it gets to the else, it prints out your error messge, then loops all over again. You have to provide it a way to break out of the loop and correctly compare the value of the user input to "unicorn" You'd be better off with something more like while raw_input("Password: ") != "unicorn: or maybe reworking the whole thing to work in a for loop, since I'm assuming you only want it to give them three chances? Generally, if you know how many times you want something to happen, it's best to use a for loop rather than a while. -Jay On Monday 11 April 2005 07:54 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Following is what I got. If I type "unicorn" it goes straight to "welcome > in." Great. But after my third mistake, it just loops in "That must have > been complicated." > > I'd like for someone to tell me "why" i screwed up. Not to just fix it. > #first of all, why does this have to be here? > password="foobar" > > count=3 > current_count=0 > > while password !="unicorn": > if current_count<count: > password=raw_input("Password:") > current_count=current_count+1 > else: > print "That must have been complicated" > > > print "Welcome in" > Best, > > Gary > > > > Gary Laevsky, Ph.D. > Keck Facility Manager, CenSSIS > Northeastern University > 302 Stearns > 360 Huntington Ave. > Boston, MA 02115 > voice(617) 373 - 2589<br> > fax(617) 373 - 7783<br><br> > > http://www.censsis.neu.edu > > http://www.ece.neu.edu/groups/osl > > http://www.keck3dfm.neu.edu > > _______________________________________________ > Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor