Higher/Lower Game: ValueError

January 28, 2022

For my scripting class, we have to make a higher/lower game. This is my code so far:

import random

seedVal = int(input("What seed should be used? "))
random.seed(seedVal)
lower = int(input("What is the lower bound? "))
upper = int(input("What is the upper bound? "))
number = random.randint(lower, upper)

while (True):
    guess = int(input("What is your guess? "))
    if(number < lower or number > upper):
        print("The number should be between the upper bound and the lower bound")
    elif(guess == number):
        print("You got it!")
        break
    elif(guess < number):
        print("Nope, too low.")
    else:
        print("Nope, too high.")

It has worked for 3/4 functionality tests however it fails when I input:
2
5
1
1
5
1
2
3
4
5

The error it gives me is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "HigherLowerGame.py", line 7, in <module>
    number = random.randint(lower, upper)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/random.py", line 248, in randint
    return self.randrange(a, b+1)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/random.py", line 226, in randrange
    raise ValueError("empty range for randrange() (%d, %d, %d)" % (istart, istop, width))
ValueError: empty range for randrange() (5, 2, -3)

>Solution :

You have to check if lower is greater than upper. You can also use min/max to take the lowest and highest value:

lower = int(input("What is the lower bound? "))
upper = int(input("What is the upper bound? "))
number = random.randint(min(lower, upper), max(lower, upper))