How to count Y/N answers in Python?

March 23, 2022

I’ve been trying to make a form using y/n as answers for each of the questions. I’ve been wondering if I could do the same thing like this, but for y/n questions instead of true/false statements.

Here’s the code I’ve been working on.

print('Are You Ready for Omicron?')
print('Here\'s a test to make sure you\'re ready')
print('Note: please answer in y or n')
print('')
faceMask = input('Do you have a face mask? ')
faceShield = input('Do you have a face shield? ')
alcohol = input('Do you have alcohol in hand? ')

booleanList = [faceMask, faceShield, alcohol]
yCount = sum(booleanList)
print(yCount)

Based on the code, I was expecting to count the y answers but ended up with an error like this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File [REDACTED], line 14, in <module>
    yCount = sum(booleanList)
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'int' and 'str'

Any simple yet good ideas on how to do this?

>Solution :

If you want to work with the example you cited, you could do this:

print('Are You Ready for Omicron?')
print('Here\'s a test to make sure you\'re ready')
print('Note: please answer in y or n')
print('')
faceMask = input('Do you have a face mask? ')
if faceMask == "y":
    faceMask = True
else:
    faceMask = False
faceShield = input('Do you have a face shield? ')
if faceShield == "y":
    faceShield = True
else:
    faceShield = False
alcohol = input('Do you have alcohol in hand? ')
if alcohol == "y":
    alcohol = True
else:
    alcohol = False
booleanList = [faceMask, faceShield, alcohol]
yCount = sum(booleanList)
print(yCount)

This is not a recommended solution but I wanted to remind you to use if/else