Is there a way to take a value from a function without returning it?

Question

I am programming code for a squash game scoring system and already return 2 values. If i return another value it would mess up other functions in my code. So i am wondering if there is any way to access the pointCount value outside of the function without returning it?

Answer 1

I don’t recommend doing this, but a quick way is to use a global variable, you will have to declare it first

pointCount = 0

def eng_Game(ra,rb):
    global pointCount
    win = False
    winCondition = 9
    aServer = False
    bServer = False
    aScore = 0
    bScore = 0
    serverNum = random.randint(1,2)
    if serverNum == 1:
        aServer = True
    else: bServer = True
    while win == False:
        pointCount += 1
        ProbAWin = ra/(ra+rb)
        ProbBWin = rb/(rb+ra)
        ranNum = random.random()
        if ranNum < ProbAWin and aServer:
            aScore += 1
        elif ranNum < ProbAWin and aServer == False:
            aServer = True
            bServer = False
        elif ranNum > ProbAWin and bServer:
            bScore += 1
        elif ranNum > ProbAWin and bServer == False:
            bServer = True
            aServer = False
        if aScore == winCondition or bScore == winCondition:
            return aScore,bScore
        elif aScore == 8 and bScore == 8:
            playTo = random.randint(1,2)
            if playTo == 1:
                winCondition = 10

You will be able to access it using the pointCount variable outside the function now.

The proper way to do this would be to declare a class and initialise variables inside the class, then use the self.variable names to access and modify them. This is a good place to start, https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_classes.asp the syntax is quite easy to understand.