I’m trying to make lists within a list that has a special character to represent a player’s position, in this case ‘@’:
def __init__(self, x, y, plrX, plrY): # simplified for question
self.board = []
boardX = []
self.x = x # x and y set to 10
self.y = y
self.plrX = plrX # set to 3
self.plrY = plrY # set to 7
a = 0
b = 0
while b < self.x: # Makes a list that looks similar to this ['-','-','-']
boardX.append('-')
b += 1
while a < self.y: # Adds above list to make somthing like this: ['-','-','-']
self.board.append(boardX) # ['-','-','-']
a += 1
self.board[self.plrY][self.plrX] = '@'
After the board is made, it’s put through a method that prints it out nicely
for x in self.board:
x = str(x).replace(',',"")
x = x.replace("'","")
print(x.strip("[]"))
What it prints out is this:
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
--@-------
But what I was wanting was to print out ‘@’ at the seventh sublist on the third character, like this:
----------
----------
----------
----------
----------
----------
--@-------
----------
----------
----------
What is causing the repeated @ character and how do I get the results I’m trying to get?
>Solution :
Lists in Python do not copy, they alias. This means that if you have a list A, and do B = A, any change you make to A is also made to B (we can say that B references A). Instead of appending the same boardX multiple times, make a copy of it each time and add that copy. That way, each row is a distinct list, and not just a reference. You can simply do boardX.copy() and you will have a copy that can be used without affecting the original boardX