While loop going infinitely because of a class method that returns wrong values - Python

Question

I'm just playing around with python concepts such as while loops, classes, methods and return values. The thing is, to make it "more attractive" I'm doing it with a class that's named Pokemon().

The code looks like this:

import random

class Pokemon():
    def __init__(self): #Pokemon attributes
        self.health = 100
        self.damage = 5
        self.__lives = 3 #? //Not used
    
    def checkalive(self, opponent): #Check if the pokemon's still alive, args: the pokemon and the opponent
        while self.health and opponent.health > 0: 
            return True #If both of them alive, return true
            break
        
        return False #If neither of them  alive, return false

    def attack(self, opponent): #Attack function, args: the pokemon and the opponent
        
        while True:
            check = self.checkalive(opponent) #Check if the pokemons are alive
            while check == True: #In case it returns True go on with the combat
                randomNumber = random.randint(0,5) #Just creating a random number
                if randomNumber == 3: #If that random number equals to 3 (20%) the opponent will defend itself and will counterattack our Pokemon
                    self.health -= opponent.damage
                    print("Got it wrong! You've got " + str(self.health)  + " HP remaining.")
                    
                else: #If not (80%), just go on with the combat
                    opponent.health -= self.damage
                    print("The opponent now has " + str(opponent.health) + " HP! Your pokemon still has got " + str(self.health) + " HP left.")
                    
            
            print("End of combat") #Once one of them is dead, end of combat
            break


Squirtle = Pokemon() #Our pokemon
Pikachu = Pokemon() #Opponent
Squirtle.attack(Pikachu)

I've created two very basic methods. One is checkalive(), just as its name says it just makes sure if the Pokemons involved in a combat are still alive, returning True or False values.

The other one is attack(), that basically just hurts the Ally Pokemon/Opponent Pokemon depending on a probability of 80%/20%. It is a really simple code and before implementing the checkalive() function it worked perfectly. However, now the while runs an indeterminately amount of times, going below negative health values. I tried to figure what's going on, tried to change the "While" for an "If" condition statement and etc, but still no clue. Any suggestion would be really appreciated.

Answer 1

You are forgetting to update the loop condition! Notice that check is never updated in your while loop. What you have to do is the following:

while check == True:
    ... # do whatever you would like to do like generate random number etc.
    check = self.checkalive(opponent)

This should work.