Super Mario pyramids in Python

Starting this week in the CS50 course, I am now transitioning from C to Python, learning syntax and all the fundamentals of this new language. To kick things off, I have rewritten my very first program, Super Mario pyramids in C. Feels quite nostalgic!

My first attempt in Python looked like this:

def main():
    height = get_height()
    for i in range(1, height + 1):
        print_row(height, i)


# Prompt user for input
def get_height():
    MIN_HEIGHT = 1
    MAX_HEIGHT = 8
    while True:
        try:
            n = int(input("Height: "))
            if MIN_HEIGHT <= n <= MAX_HEIGHT:
                return n
        except ValueError:
            print("Enter a number from 1 to 8")


# Printing columns of the pyramid
def print_row(height, length):
    # Printing the spaces on the left
    spaces = height - length
    print(" " * spaces, end="")

    # Printing hashes for the left side of the pyramid
    print("#" * length, end="")

    # Printing the gap between the sides of the pyramid
    print("  ", end="")

    # Printing hashes for the right side of the pyramid
    print("#" * length)


main()

Then I decided to shrink the print_row function into a single print:

# Printing columns of the pyramid
def print_row(height, length):
    spaces = height - length
    print(" " * spaces + "#" * length + "  " + "#" * length)

But looking at that piece of code, I realised that I don’t need a separate function for this at all. The concatenation of strings within a single print function in Python is amazing!

I’ve also added a condition to check whether the user input is numeric, which might be an overkill for this case, but still good for practice.

So here is my final code:

def main():

    height = get_height()

    # Print pyramid
    for i in range(1, height + 1):
        spaces = height - i
        print(" " * spaces + "#" * i + "  " + "#" * i)


# Prompt user for input
def get_height():

    MIN_HEIGHT = 1
    MAX_HEIGHT = 8

    while True:
        height_str = input("Height: ")

        if height_str.isnumeric():
            height = int(height_str)
            if MIN_HEIGHT <= height <= MAX_HEIGHT:
                return height
            else:
                print("Number must be between 1 and 8, inclusive.")
        else:
            print("Invalid input. Please enter a number.")


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

That ending felt a bit weird, but as I’ve learned from Google, it seems like a rule of thumb to finish the program with that line to ensure it can be executed only when the file runs as a script, but not through importing as a module.