flash_card_challenge.txt

Project

	Write a flash card quizzer from scratch
	
Goals:

	1. practice breaking down a problem and solving it in Python from scratch
	2. practice command line option parsing
	3. practice reading from files
	4. practice working with dictionaries and for loops
	
Problem statement:

	Write a Python script that takes a file containing flash card questions and answers as an argument 
	and quizzes the user based on the contents of that file until the user quits the program. Questions 
	should be selected randomly (as opposed to going in order through the file), and the user should 
	type in their guess. The script should say whether or not a guess is correct and provide the correct 
	answer if an incorrect answer is given.
	
Breaking down the problem

	Step 1: Get the questions from a fixed flash card file 
	
		Download: http://web.mit.edu/jesstess/www/IntermediatePythonWorkshop/state_capitals.txt
		
		Write the code to open and read state_capitals.txt (we'll deal with getting a variable 
		filename from the user later). Create a dictionary, where each comma-separated question and 
		answer become a key and value in the dictionary. Note that each line in the file ends in a 
		newline, which you'll need to remove from the word.
		
		Step 1 resources:
		
			1. File I/O: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/inputoutput.html#reading-and-writing-files
			2. Stripping characters (like whitespace and newlines) from a string: http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#str.strip
			
	Step 2: Randomly select questions from the question dictionary
		
		Write a while loop that loops forever and at each iteration through the loop randomly 
		selects a key/value pair from the questions dictionary and prints the question.
		
		To randomly select a key from the dictionary, you can use the random module, and in 
		particular the random.choice function.
		
		When you run your script, to break out of the while loop you can press Control and then 
		(while still holding down Control) c.

		Step 2 resources:
		
			1. while loops: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Python_Programming/Flow_control#While_loops
			2. Dictionary manipulation: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries
			   In particular, look at getting a list of the dictionary's keys using the keys method.
			3. Selecting a random value from a list using the random module: http://docs.python.org/library/random.html#random.choice
			
	Step 3: Get and check the user's answer
	
		Inside your while loop, write the code that gets an answer from the user and compares it to 
		the answer retrieved from the questions dictionary. If the answer is correct, say so. If 
		the answer is incorrect, say so and print the correct answer.
		
		You can get input from a user using the raw_input function.
		
		It is up to you how strict you want to be with a user's answer. Do you want capitalization 
		to matter?

		Step 3 resources:
		
			1. using raw_input to get data from the user: http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#raw_input
			
	Step 4: Allow the user to quit the program
	
		The while loop currently runs forever. Pick a special phrase (like "Exit") that the user 
		can type instead of an answer that signals that they want to quit the program. When that 
		special phrase is given, print a goodbye message and break out of the while loop to end the 
		program.
		
		Step 4 resources:
		
			1. Using the break keyword to break out of a loop: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/controlflow.html#break-and-continue-statements-and-else-clauses-on-loops
			2. Making decisions with if, elif, and else: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/controlflow.html#if-statements
			
	Step 5: Get the quiz questions file from the user
	
		Write the code to get the quiz questions file from a command line argument. Handle the case 
		where a user forgets to supply a file; in this case, print an error message saying they 
		need to supply a file, and then exit the program using the exit() function.
		
		Step 5 resources:
		
			1. Command line argument parsing: http://docs.python.org/library/argparse.html#module-argparse
			2. Getting and checking the number of command line arguments: http://docs.python.org/library/sys.html