Is there a better way to display a simple countdown or is this good enough?

September 19, 2022

Today I learned the time.sleep function and tried to create a countdown from it. At first I had made it very complicated (see python comment) and then I found a much better, simpler method. Now I’m thirsty for knowledge and I’m wondering if you can recommend a better method? Maybe my range variant is completely sufficient. Thanks in advance!

import time

def wait_2sec():
    time.sleep(2)

def wait_1sec():
    time.sleep(1)

print("The countdown starts in a few seconds...")
wait_2sec()


# the new method I tried
for i in range(10, -1, -1):
    print(i)
    wait_1sec()
    if i == 0:
        wait_1sec()
        print("--- FINISH ---")


# the first method I tried
# print("---- COUNTDOWN STARTS! ----")
# print("10")
# wait_1sec()
# print("9")
# wait_1sec()
# print("8")
# wait_1sec()
# print("7")
# wait_1sec()
# print("6")
# wait_1sec()
# print("5")
# wait_1sec()
# print("4")
# wait_1sec()
# print("3")
# wait_1sec()
# print("2")
# wait_1sec()
# print("1")
# wait_1sec()
# print("* FINISH *")
# wait_2sec()

>Solution :

The most obvious thing would be to use one function with an argument like this:

import time

def wait_nsec(n):
    time.sleep(n)


print("The countdown starts in a few seconds...")
wait_nsec(2)


# the new method I tried
for i in range(10, -1, -1):
    print(i)
    wait_nsec(1)
    if i == 0:
        wait_nsec(1)
        print("--- FINISH ---")

or completely remove the function and use a while loop for the countdown.

import time

print("The countdown starts in a few seconds...")
time.sleep(1)

i = 10
while i >= 0:
    print(i)
    time.sleep(1)
    i = i-1
print('---finish---')