Python Programming:

An Introduction To
Computer Science

Chapter 12
Object-Oriented Design

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Objectives
 To understand the process of object-
oriented design.
 To be able to read and understand
object-oriented programs.
 To understand the concepts of
encapsulation, polymorphism and
inheritance as they pertain to object-
oriented design and programming.

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Objectives
 To be able to design moderately
complex software using object-oriented
design.

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The Process of OOD
 Most modern computer applications are
designed using a data-centered view of
computing called object-oriented design
(OOD).
 The essence of OOD is describing a
system in terms of magical black boxes
and their interfaces.

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The Process of OOD
 Each component provides a service or set of
services through its interface.
 Other components are users or clients of the
services.
 A client only needs to understand the
interface of a service – implementation details
are not important, they may be changed and
shouldn’t affect the client at all!

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The Process of OOD
 The component providing the service
shouldn’t have to consider how the
service is used – it just needs to provide
the service “as advertised” via the
interface.
 This separation of concerns makes the
design of complex systems possible.

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The Process of OOD
 In top-down design, functions serve the
role of the black box.
 Client programs can use the functions as
long as it understands what the function
does.
 How the function accomplishes its task is
encapsulated within the function.

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The Process of OOD
 In OOD, the black boxes are objects.
 The magic behind the objects is in the class
definitions. Once a class definition is written,
we can ignore how the class works and rely
on the external interface, its methods.
 You’ve seen this when using the graphics
library – you were able to draw a circle
without having to know all the nitty-gritty
details encapsulated in class definitions for
GraphWin and Circle.

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The Process of OOD
 Breaking a large problem into a set of
cooperating classes reduces the complexity
that must be considered to understand any
given part of the program. Each class stands
on its own!
 OOD is the process of finding and defining a
useful set of classes for a given problem.
 Like design, it’s part art and part science. The
more you design, the better you’ll get.
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The Process of OOD
 Here are some guidelines for OOD:
 Look for object candidates
 The goal is to define a set of objects that will
be helpful in solving the problem.
 Start with a careful consideration of the
problem statement – objects are usually
described by nouns. Which nouns in your
problem statement would be represented in
your program? Which have interesting behavior
or properties?

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The Process of OOD
 Look for object candidates
 Things that can be represented as primitive
data types (numbers or strings) are probably
not important object candidates.
 Things to look for: a grouping of related data
items (e.g., point coordinates, employee data)
 Identify instance variables
 Once you think of some possible objects, think
of the kinds of information each object will
need to do its job.

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The Process of OOD
 Identify instance variables
 Some object attributes will have primitive data
types, while others may be complex types that
suggest other useful objects/classes.
 Strive to find good “home” classes for all the
data in your program.
 Think about interfaces
 What operations would be required for objects
of that class to be useful?
 Consider the verbs in the problem statement.

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The Process of OOD
 Think about interfaces
 Verbs describe actions.
 List the methods that the class will require.
 Remember – all of the manipulation of the
object’s data should be done through the
methods you provide.
 Refine the nontrivial methods
 Some methods will probably look like they can
be accomplished in a few lines of code, while
others may take more programming effort.

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The Process of OOD
 Refine the nontrivial methods
 Use top-down design and stepwise refinement
to flesh out the details of the more difficult
methods.
 As you’re programming, you may discover that
some new interactions with other classes are
needed, and you may need to add new
methods to other classes.
 Sometimes you may discover a need for a
brand-new kind of object that calls for the
definition of another class.

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The Process of OOD
 Design iteratively
 It’s not unusual to bounce back and forth
between designing new classes and adding
methods to existing classes.
 Work on whatever is demanding your attention.
 No one designs a program top to bottom in a
linear, systematic fashion. Make progress
wherever progress needs to be made.

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The Process of OOD
 Try out alternatives
 Don’t be afraid to scrap an approach that
doesn’t seem to be working, or to follow an
idea and see where it leads. Good design
involves a lot of trial and error!
 When you look at the programs of others, you
are looking at finished work, not the process
used to get there.
 Well-designed programs are probably not the
result of a first try. As Fred Brooks said, “Plan
to throw one away.”

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The Process of OOD
 Keep it simple
 At each step in the design, try to find the
simplest approach that will solve the problem.
 Don’t design in extra complexity until it is clear
that a more complex approach is needed.

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Case Study:
Racquetball Simulation
 You may want to review our top-down
design of the racquetball simulation
from Chapter 9.
 We want to simulate multiple games of
racquetball where the ability of the two
opponents is represented by the
probability that they win a point when
they are serving.
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Case Study:
Racquetball Simulation
 Inputs:
 Probability for player A
 Probability for player B
 The number of games to simulate
 Output:
 A nicely formatted summary of the results

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Case Study:
Racquetball Simulation
 Previously, we ended a game when one of
the players reached 15 points.
 This time, let’s also consider shutouts. If one
player gets to 7 points before the other
player has scored a point, the game ends.
 The simulation should keep track of each
players’ wins and the number of wins that
are shutouts.

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Candidate Objects and Methods
 Our first task – find a set of objects that could
be useful in solving this problem.
 Problem statement – “Simulate a series of
racquetball games between two players and
record some statistics about the series of
games.”
 This suggests two things
 Simulate a game
 Keep track of some statistics

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Candidate Objects and Methods
 First, let’s simulate the game.
 Use an object to represent a single game
of racquetball.
 This game will have to keep track of some
information, namely, the skill levels of the
two players.
 Let’s call this class RBallGame. Its
constructor requires parameters for the
probabilities of the two players.

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Candidate Objects and Methods
 What else do we need? We need to play the
game.
 We can give the class a play method that
simulates the game until it’s over.
 We could then create and play a racquetball
game with two lines of code!

theGame = RBallGame(probA, probB)

theGame.play()

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Candidate Objects and Methods
 To play several games, we just need to put a
loop around this code.
 We’ll need four counts to keep track of at
least four counts to print the results of our
simulation: wins for A, wins for B, shutouts
for A, and shutouts for B
 We could also count the number of games
played, but we can calculate this from the
counts above.
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Candidate Objects and Methods
 These four related pieces of information
could be grouped into a single object,
which could be an instance of the class
SimStats.
 A SimStats object will keep track of
all the information about a series of
games.

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Candidate Objects and Methods
 What operations would be useful on these
statistics?
 The constructor should initialize the counts to 0.
 We need a way to update these counts while the
games are simulated. How can we do this?
 The easiest approach would be to send the entire
game object to the method and let it extract the
appropriate information.
 Once the games are done, we need a method to
print out the results – printReport.

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Candidate Objects and Methods
def main():
printIntro()
probA, probB, n = getInputs()
# Play the games
stats = SimStats()
for i in range(n):
theGame = RBallGame(probA, probB) # Create a new game
theGame.play() # Play it
stats.update(theGame) # Get info about completed game
# Print the results
stats.printReport()

 The helper functions that print an

introduction and get inputs should be easy.
Let’s work on the SimStats class!

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Implementing SimStats
 The constructor for SimStats just
needs to initialize the four counts to 0.
 class SimStats:
def __init__(self):
self.winA = 0
self.winB = 0
self.shutsA = 0
self.shutsB = 0

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Implementing SimStats
 The update method takes a game as a
parameter and updates the four counts
appropriately. The heading will look like
this:
def update(self, aGame):
 We need to know the final score of the
game, be we can’t directly access that
information since it is an instance
variable of aGame.
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Implementing SimStats
 We need a new method in RBallGame
that will report the final score.
 Let’s call this new method getScores,
and it will return the scores for player A
and player B.
 Now the algorithm for update is
straightforward.

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Implementing SimStats
def update(self, aGame):
a, b = aGame.getScores()
if a > b: # A won the game
self.winsA = self.winsA + 1
if b == 0:
self.shutsA = self.shutsA + 1
else: # B won the game
self.winsB = self.winsB + 1
if a == 0:
self.shutsB = self.shutsB + 1

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Implementing SimStats
 The only thing left is a method to print
out the results.
 The method printReport will
generate a table showing the
 wins
 win percentage
 shutouts
 and shutout percentage for each player.

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Implementing SimStats
 Here’s sample output:
Summary of 500 games:

wins (% total) shutouts (% wins)

--------------------------------------------
Player A: 393 78.6% 72 18.3%
Player B: 107 21.4% 8 7.5%

 The headings are easy to handle, but

printing the output in nice columns is
harder. We also need to avoid division
by 0 when calculating percentages.

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Implementing SimStats
 Let’s move printing the lines of the
table into the method printLine.
 The printLine method will need the
player label (A or B), number of wins
and shutouts, and the total number of
games (for calculating percentages).

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Implementing SimStats
 def printReport(self):
# Print a nicely formatted report
n = self.winsA + self.winsB
print "Summary of", n , "games:"
print
print " wins (% total) shutouts (% wins) "
print "--------------------------------------------"
self.printLine("A", self.winsA, self.shutsA, n)
self.printLine("B", self.winsB, self.shutsB, n)

 To finish the class, we will implement

printLine. This method makes heavy
use of string formatting.
 You may want to review string
formatting in chapter ??

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Implementing SimStats
 def printLine(self, label, wins, shuts, n):
template = "Player %s: %4d %5.1f%% %11d %s "
if wins == 0: # Avoid division by zero!
shutStr = "----- "
else:
shutStr = "%4.1f%%" % (float(shuts)/wins*100)
print template % (label, wins, float(wins)/n*100,\
shuts, shutStr)

 We define a template for the

information that will appear in each
line.
 The if ensures we don’t divide by 0,
and the template treats it as a string.

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Implementing RBallGame
 This class needs a constructor that
accepts two probabilities as parameters,
a play method that plays the game,
and a getScores method that reports
the scores.

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Implementing RBallGame
 What will a racquetball game need to know?
 To play the game, we need to know
 The probability for each player
 The score for each player
 Which player is serving
 The probability and score are more related to a
particular player, while the server is a property of
the game between the two players.

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Implementing RBallGame
 So, a game needs to know who the players
are
 The players themselves could be objects that
know their probability and score
 and which is serving.
 If the players are objects, then we need
a class to define their behavior. Let’s
call it Player.

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Implementing RBallGame
 The Player object will keep track of a
player’s probability and score.
 When a Player is initialized, the
probability will be passed as a
parameter. Its score will be set to 0.
 Let’s develop Player as we work on
RBallGame.

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Implementing RBallGame
 The game will need instance variables
for the two players, and another
variable to keep track of which player
has service.
 class RBallGame:
def __init__(self, probA, probB):
# Create a new game having players with the given probs.
self.playerA = Player(probA)
self.playerB = Player(probB)
self.server = self.playerA # Player A always serves first

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Implementing RBallGame
 Suppose we create an
instance of
RBallGame like this:
theGame = RBallGame(.6, .5)

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Implementing RBallGame
 Our next step is to code how to play the
game!
 In chapter 9 we developed an algorithm
that continues to serve rallies and
awards points or changes service as
appropriate until the game is over.
 Let’s translate this algorithm into our
object-based code!

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Implementing RBallGame
 Firstly, we need a loop that continues
as long as the game is not over.
 The decision whether a game is over or
not can only be done by looking at the
game object itself.
 Let’s assume we have an isOver
method which can be used.

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Implementing RBallGame
 def play(self):
# Play the game to completion
while not self.isOver():

 Within the loop, the serving player

needs to serve, and, based on the
result, we decide what to do.
 This suggests that the Player objects
should have a method that performs a
serve.
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Implementing RBallGame
 Whether the serve is not depends on the
probability stored within each player object,
so, one can ask the server if the serve was
won or lost!
 if self.server.winsServe():
 Based on the result, a point is awarded or
service changes.
 To award a point, the player’s score needs to
be changed, which requires the player object
to increment the score.

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Implementing RBallGame
 Changing servers is done at the game
level, since this information is kept in
the server instance variable of
RBallGame.
 Here’s the completed play method:

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Implementing RBallGame
 def play(self):
# Play the game to completion
while not self.isOver():
if self.server.winsServe():
self.server.incScore()
else:
self.changeServer()
 Remember, self is an RBallGame!
 While this algorithm is simple, we need two
more methods (isOver and
changeServer) in the RBallGame class
and two more (winServe and inScore) for
the Player class.

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Implementing RBallGame
 Before working on these methods, let’s
go back and finish the other top-level
method of the RBallGame class,
getScores, which returns the scores
of the two players.
 The player objects actually know the
scores, so we need a method that asks
a player to return its score.
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Implementing RBallGame
 def getScores(self):
# RETURNS the current scores of player A and player B
return self.playerA.getScore(), self.playerB.getScore()

 This adds one more method to be

implemented in the Player class!
Don’t forget it!!
 To finish the RBallGame class, all that is
needed is to write the isOver and
changeServer methods (left as an
exercise).

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Implementing Player
 While developing the RBallGame class, we
discovered the need for a Player class that
encapsulates the service probability and
current score for a player.
 The Player class needs a suitable
constructor and methods for winsServe,
incScore, and getScore.

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Implementing Player
 In the class constructor, we need to
initialize the instance variables. The
probability will be passed as a variable,
and the score is set to 0.
 def __init__(self, prob):
# Create a player with this probability
self.prob = prob
self.score = 0

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Implementing Player
 To see if a player wins a serve,
compare the probability of service win
to a random number between 0 and 1.
 def winsServe(self):
# RETURNS true with probability self.prob
return random() <= self.prob

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Implementing Player
 To give a player a point, we add one to
the score.
 def incScore(self):
# Add a point to this player's score
self.score = self.score + 1

 The final method returns the value of

the score.
 def getScore(self):
# RETURN this player's current score
return self.score

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Implementing Player
 You may think it’s silly to create a class
with many one or two-line methods.
 This is quite common in well-
modularized, object-oriented programs.
 If the pieces are so simple that their
implementation is obvious, we have
confidence that it must be right!

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The Complete Program
# objrrball.py
# Simulation of a racquet game.
# Illustrates design with objects.

from random import random

class Player:
# A Player keeps track of service probability and score

def __init__(self, prob):

# Create a player with this probability
self.prob = prob
self.score = 0

def winsServe(self):
# RETURNS true with probability self.prob
return random() <= self.prob

def incScore(self):
# Add a point to this player's score
self.score = self.score + 1

def getScore(self):
# RETURN this player's current score
return self.score
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The Complete Program
class RBallGame:
# A RBallGame represents a game in progress. A game as two players
# and keeps track of which one is currently serving.

def __init__(self, probA, probB):

# Create a new game having players with the given probs.
self.playerA = Player(probA)
self.playerB = Player(probB)
self.server = self.playerA # Player A always serves first

def play(self):
# Play the game to completion
while not self.isOver():
if self.server.winsServe():
self.server.incScore()
else:
self.changeServer()

def isOver(self):
# RETURNS game is finished (i.e. one of the players has won).
a,b = self.getScores()
return a == 15 or b == 15 or \
(a == 7 and b == 0) or (b==7 and a == 0)

def changeServer(self):
# Switch which player is serving
if self.server == self.playerA:
self.server = self.playerB
else:
self.server = self.playerA

def getScores(self):
# RETURNS the current scores of player A and player B
return self.playerA.getScore(), self.playerB.getScore()

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The Complete Program
class SimStats:
# SimStatistics handles accumulation of statistics across multiple
# (completed) games. This version tracks the wins and shutouts for
# each player.

def __init__(self):
# Create a new accumulator for a series of games
self.winsA = 0
self.winsB = 0
self.shutsA = 0
self.shutsB = 0

def update(self, aGame):

# Determine the outcome if aGame and update statistics
a, b = aGame.getScores()

if a > b: # A won the game

self.winsA = self.winsA + 1
if b == 0:
self.shutsA = self.shutsA + 1
else: # B won the game
self.winsB = self.winsB + 1
if a == 0:
self.shutsB = self.shutsB + 1

def printReport(self):
# Print a nicely formatted report
n = self.winsA + self.winsB
print "Summary of", n , "games:"
print
print " wins (% total) shutouts (% wins) "
print "--------------------------------------------"
self.printLine("A", self.winsA, self.shutsA, n)
self.printLine("B", self.winsB, self.shutsB, n)

def printLine(self, label, wins, shuts, n):

template = "Player %s: %4d %5.1f%% %11d %s"
if wins == 0: # Avoid division by zero!
shutStr = "-----"
else:
shutStr = "%4.1f%%" % (float(shuts)/wins*100)
print template % (label, wins, float(wins)/n*100, shuts, shutStr)

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The Complete Program
def printIntro():
print "This program simulates games of racquetball between two"
print 'players called "A" and "B". The ability of each player is'
print "indicated by a probability (a number between 0 and 1) that"
print "the player wins the point when serving. Player A always"
print "has the first serve.\n"

def getInputs():
# Returns the three simulation parameters
a = input("What is the prob. player A wins a serve? ")
b = input("What is the prob. player B wins a serve? ")
n = input("How many games to simulate? ")
return a, b, n

def main():
printIntro()

probA, probB, n = getInputs()

# Play the games

stats = SimStats()
for i in range(n):
theGame = RBallGame(probA, probB) # create a new game
theGame.play() # play it
stats.update(theGame) # get info about completed game

# Print the results

stats.printReport()

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Case Study: Dice Poker
 Objects are very useful when designing
graphical user interfaces.
 Let’s look at a graphical application
using some of the widgets developed in
previous chapters.

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Program Specification
 Our goal is to write a program that
allows a user to play video poker using
dice.
 The program will display a hand
consisting of five dice.

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Program Specification
 The basic rules
 The player starts with $100
 Each round costs $10 to play. This amount is
subtracted from the user’s money at the start of
the round.
 The player initially rolls a completely random hand
(all 5 dice are rolled).
 The player gets two chances to enhance the hand
by rerolling some or all of the dice.

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Program Specification
 At the end of the hand, the player’s money
is updated according to the following
payout schedule:
Hand Pay

Two Pairs 5

Three of a Kind 8

Full House 12
(A Pair and a Three of a Kind)
Four of a Kind 15

Straight (1-5 or 2-6) 20

Five of a Kind 30
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Program Specification
 Since we want a nice graphical interface, we
will be interacting with our program through
mouse clicks.
 The interface should have:
 The current score (amount of money) is constantly applied.
 The program automatically terminates if the player goes
broke.
 The player may choose to quit at appropriate points during
play.
 The interface will present visual cues to indicate what is
going on at any given moment and what the valid user
responses are.

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Identifying Candidate Objects
 The first step is to analyze the program
description and identify some objects
that will be useful in solving the
problem.
 This game involves dice and money.
Are they good object candidates?
 On their own, a single die and the
money can be represented as numbers.

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Identifying Candidate Objects
 However, the game uses five dice, and
we need to be able to roll all or a
selection of the dice, as well as analyze
the score.
 This can be encapsulated in a Dice
class.

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Identifying Candidate Objects
 Here are some obvious operations to
implement:
 Constructor – Create the initial collection
 rollAll – Assign random values to each
of the five dice
 roll – Assign a random value to some
subset of the dice, while maintaining the
current value of the others.

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Identifying Candidate Objects
 values – Return the current values of the five
dice
 score – Return the score for the dice
 The entire program can be thought of as an
object. Let’s call the class PokerApp.
 The PokerApp object will keep track of the
current amount of money, the dice, the
number of rolls, etc.
 PokerApp will use a method called run to
start the game.
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Identifying Candidate Objects
 Another component of the game is the user
interface.
 A good way to break down the complexity of
a more sophisticated problem is to separate
the UI from the main program.
 This is often called the model-view approach,
where the program implements some model
and the interface is a view of the current
state of the model.
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Identifying Candidate Objects
 We can encapsulate the decisions about the
interface in a separate interface object.
 One advantage of this approach is that we
can change the look and feel of the program
by substituting a different interface object.
 Let’s call our interface object
PokerInterface.

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Implementing the Model
 The Dice class implements a collection
of dice, which are just changing
numbers.
 The obvious representation is a list of
five ints. The constructor needs to
create a list and assign some initial
values.

Python Programming, 2/e 71

Implementing the Model
 def __init__(self):
self.dice = [0]*5
self.rollAll()
 This code first creates a list of five
zeroes. Then they need to be set to
random values.
 We need methods to roll selected dice
and to roll all of the dice.

Python Programming, 2/e 72

Implementing the Model
 Since rolling all dice is a special case of rolling
selected dice, we can implement the former
with the latter.
 We can specify which dice to roll by passing a
list of indexes. For example,
roll([0,3,4]) will roll the dice in positions
0, 3, and 4.
 We can use a loop to go through the list,
generating a new random value for each
listed position.
Python Programming, 2/e 73
Implementing the Model
 def roll(self, which)
for pos in which:
self.dice[pos] = randint(1,6)

 We can use roll to implement

rollAll…
 def rollAll(self):
self.roll(range(5))

 Here, range(5) is used to generate a

list of all the indexes.

Python Programming, 2/e 74

Implementing the Model
 The values function returns the values
of the dice so they can be displayed.
 def values(self):
return self.dice[:]

 Why did we create a copy of the dice

list by slicing it?
 If a Dice client modifies the list it gets
back from values, it will not affect the
original copy stored in the Dice object.

Python Programming, 2/e 75

Implementing the Model
 The score method will determine the
worth of the current dice.
 We need to examine the values and
determine whether we have any of the
patterns in the table.
 Let’s return a string with what the hand
is and an int that gives the payoff
amount.

Python Programming, 2/e 76

Implementing the Model
 We can think of this function as a multi-
way decision, checking for each
possible hand.
 The order that we do the check is
important! A full house also contains a
three of a kind, but the payout should
be for a full house!

Python Programming, 2/e 77

Implementing the Model
 One simple way to check the hand is to
create a list of the counts of each value.
 counts[i] will be the number of
times that i occurs in the roll.
 If the dice are [3,2,5,2,3], then the
count list will be [0,0,2,2,0,1,0].
 counts[0] will always be 0 since dice
go from 1 – 6.

Python Programming, 2/e 78

Implementing the Model
 With this approach, checking for a full
house entails looking for a 3 and a 2 in
counts.
 def score(self):
counts = [0] * 7
for value in self.dice:
counts[value] = counts[value] + 1

Python Programming, 2/e 79

Implementing the Model
if 5 in counts:
return "Five of a Kind", 30
elif 4 in counts:
return "Four of a Kind", 15
elif (3 in counts) and (2 in counts):
return "Full House", 12
elif (not (3 in counts)) and (not (2 in counts)) \
and (counts[1]==0 or counts[6] == 0):
return "Straight", 20
elif 3 in counts:
return "Three of a Kind", 8
elif counts.count(2) == 2:
return "Two Pairs", 5
else:
return "Garbage", 0

 Since we’ve already checked for 5, 4, and 3 of a kind,

checking that there are no pairs -- (not (2 in
counts)) guarantees that the dice show five
distinct values. If there is no 6, then the values must
be 1-5, and if there is no 1, the values must be 2-6.

Python Programming, 2/e 80

Implementing the Model
 Let’s try it out!
 >>> from dice import Dice
>>> d = Dice()
>>> d.values()
[2, 3, 2, 6, 3]
>>> d.score()
('Two Pairs', 5)
>>> d.roll([3])
>>> d.values()
[2, 3, 2, 2, 3]
>>> d.score()
('Full House', 12)

Python Programming, 2/e 81

Implementing the Model
 We now are at the point where we can
implement the poker game.
 We can use top-down design to flesh out the
details and suggest which methods will need
to be implemented in the PokerInterface
class.
 Initially, PokerApp will need to keep track of
the dice, the amount of money, and the
interface. Let’s initialize these values first.
Python Programming, 2/e 82
Implementing the Model
class PokerApp:
def __init__(self):
self.dice = Dice()
self.money = 100
self.interface = PokerInterface()

 To run the program, we create an instance of

this class and call its run method.
 The program will loop, allowing the user to
continue playing hands until they are either
out of money or choose to quit.

Python Programming, 2/e 83

Implementing the Model
 Since it costs $10 to play a hand, we
can continue as long as
self.money >= 10.
 Determining whether the player wants
to continue or not must come from the
user interface.

Python Programming, 2/e 84

Implementing the Model
 def run(self):
while self.money >= 10 and self.interface.wantToPlay():
self.playRound()
self.interface.close()

 The interface.close() call at the

bottom will let us do any necessary clean-
up, such as printing a final message,
closing graphics windows, etc.
 Now we’ll focus on the playRound method.

Python Programming, 2/e 85

Implementing the Model
 Each round consists of a series of rolls.
Based on the rolls, the player’s score
will be adjusted.
 def playRound(self):
self.money = self.money – 10
self.interface.setMoney(self.money)
self.doRolls()
result, score = self.dice.score()
self.interface.showResult(result, score)
self.money = self.money + score
self.interface.setMoney(self.money)

Python Programming, 2/e 86

Implementing the Model
 When new information is to be presented to
the user, the proper method from
interface is invoked.
 The $10 fee to play is first deducted, and the
interface is updated with the new amount of
money remaining.
 The program processes a series of rolls
(doRolls), displays the result, and updates
the money.
Python Programming, 2/e 87
Implementing the Model
 Lastly, we need to implement the dice rolling
process.
 Initially, all the dice are rolled.
 Then, we need a loop that continues rolling
user-selected dice until either the user quits
or the limit of three rolls is reached.
 rolls keeps track of how many times the
dice have been rolled.

Python Programming, 2/e 88

Implementing the Model
 def doRolls(self):
self.dice.rollAll()
roll = 1
self.interface.setDice(self.dice.values())
toRoll = self.interface.chooseDice()
while roll < 3 and toRoll != []:
self.dice.roll(toRoll)
roll = roll + 1
self.interface.setDice(self.dice.values())
if roll < 3:
toRoll = self.interface.chooseDice()

 Whew! We’ve completed the basic functions

of our interactive poker program.
 We can’t test it yet because we don’t have a
user interface…

Python Programming, 2/e 89

A Text-Based UI
 In the process of designing PokerApp,
we also developed a specification for a
generic PokerInterface class.
 The interface must support methods for
displaying information –
 setMoney
 setDice
 showResult

Python Programming, 2/e 90

A Text-Based UI
 It also must have methods that allow input
from the user –
 wantToPlay
 chooseDice
 These methods can be implemented in many
different ways, producing programs that look
quite different, even while the underlying
model, PokerApp, remains the same.

Python Programming, 2/e 91

A Text-Based UI
 Graphical interfaces are usually more
complicated to build, so we might want
to build a text-based interface first for
testing and debugging purposes.
 We can tweak the PokerApp class so
that the user interface is supplied as a
parameter to the constructor.

Python Programming, 2/e 92

A Text-Based UI
 def __init__(self, interface):
self.dice = Dice()
self.money = 100
self.interface = interface
 By setting the interface up as a
parameter, we can easily use different
interfaces with our poker program.
 Here’s a bare-bones text-based
interface:

Python Programming, 2/e 93

A Text-Based UI
 # textinter.py
class TextInterface:
def __init__(self):
print "Welcome to video poker.“
def setMoney(self, amt):
print "You currently have $%d." % (amt)
def setDice(self, values):
print "Dice:", values
def wantToPlay(self):
ans = raw_input("Do you wish to try your luck? ")
return ans[0] in "yY“
def close(self):
print "\nThanks for playing!"

Python Programming, 2/e 94

A Text-Based UI
 def showResult(self, msg, score):
print "%s. You win $%d." % (msg,score)
def chooseDice(self):
return input("Enter list of which to change ([] to stop) ")

 Using this interface, we can test our

PokerApp program. Here’s a complete
program:
from pokerapp import PokerApp
from textinter import TextInterface
inter = TextInterface()
app = PokerApp(inter)
app.run()

Python Programming, 2/e 95

A Text-Based UI
Welcome to video poker.
Do you wish to try your luck? y
You currently have $90.
Dice: [6, 4, 1, 1, 6]
Enter list of which to change ([] to stop) [1]
Dice: [6, 3, 1, 1, 6]
Enter list of which to change ([] to stop) [1]
Dice: [6, 4, 1, 1, 6]
Two Pairs. You win $5.
You currently have $95.
Do you wish to try your luck? y
You currently have $85.
Dice: [5, 1, 3, 6, 4]
Enter list of which to change ([] to stop) [1]
Dice: [5, 2, 3, 6, 4]
Enter list of which to change ([] to stop) []
Straight. You win $20.
You currently have $105.
Do you wish to try your luck? n

Thanks for playing!

Python Programming, 2/e 96

Developing a GUI
 Now that we’ve verified that our
program works, we can start work on
the GUI user interface.
 This new interface will support the
various methods found in the text-
based version, and will likely have
additional helper methods.

Python Programming, 2/e 97

Developing a GUI
 Requirements
 The faces of the dice and the current score will be
continuously displayed.
 The setDice and setMoney methods will be
used to change these displays.
 We have one output method, showResult. One
way we can display this information is at the
bottom of the window, in what is sometimes
called a status bar.

Python Programming, 2/e 98

Developing a GUI
 We can use buttons to get information
from the user.
 In wantToPlay, the user can choose
between rolling the dice or quitting by
selecting the “Roll Dice” or “Quit” buttons.
 To implement chooseDice, we could
have a button to push for each die to be
rolled. When done selecting the dice to
roll, the “Roll Dice” button could be
pushed.
Python Programming, 2/e 99
Developing a GUI
 We could allow the users to change their
mind on which dice to choose by having
the button be a toggle that
selects/unselects a particular die.
 This enhancement suggests that we want a
way to show which dice are currently
selected. We could easily “gray out” the
pips on dice selected for rolling.

Python Programming, 2/e 100

Developing a GUI
 We also need a way to indicate that we
want to stop rolling and score the dice as
they are. One way to do this could be by
not having any selected dice and choosing
“Roll Dice”. A more intuitive solution would
be to add a new button called “Score”.
 Now that the functional aspects are
decided, how should the GUI look?

Python Programming, 2/e 101

Developing a GUI

Python Programming, 2/e 102

Developing a GUI
 Our GUI makes use of buttons and dice. We
can reuse our Button and DieView class
from previous chapters!
 We’ll use a list of Buttons as we did in the
calculator program in Chapter 11.
 The buttons of the poker interface will not be
active all of the time. E.g., the dice buttons
are only active when the user is choosing
dice.
Python Programming, 2/e 103
Developing a GUI
 When user input is required, the valid
buttons for that interaction will be set
active and the others set inactive.,
using a helper method called choose.
 The choose method takes a list of
button labels as a parameter, activates
them, and then waits for the user to
click one of them.
Python Programming, 2/e 104
Developing a GUI
 The return value is the label of the
button that was clicked.
 For example, if we are waiting for the
user to choose either the “Roll Dice” or
“Quit” button, we could use this code:

choice = self.choose(["Roll Dice", "Quit"])

if choice == ("Roll Dice"):
…

Python Programming, 2/e 105

Developing a GUI
def choose(self, choices):
buttons = self.buttons
# activate choice buttons, deactivate others
for b in buttons:
if b.getLabel() in choices:
b.activate()
else:
b.deactivate()
# get mouse clicks until an active button is clicked
while True:
p = self.win.getMouse()
for b in buttons:
if b.clicked(p):
return b.getLabel()

Python Programming, 2/e 106

Developing a GUI
 The DieView class will be basically the same
as we used before, but we want to add a new
feature – the ability to change the color of a
die to indicate when it is selected for
rerolling.
 The DieView constructor draws a square
and seven circles to represent where the pips
appear. setValue turns on the appropriate
pips for a given value.

Python Programming, 2/e 107

Developing a GUI
 Here’s the setValue method as it was:
def setValue(self, value):
# Turn all the pips off
for pip in self.pips:
pip.setFill(self.background)

# Turn the appropriate pips back on

for i in self.onTable[value]:
self.pips[i].setFill(self.foreground)

Python Programming, 2/e 108

Developing a GUI
 We need to modify the DieView class
by adding a setColor method to
change the color used for drawing the
pips.
 In setValue, the color of the pips is
determined by the value of the instance
variable foreground.

Python Programming, 2/e 109

Developing a GUI
 The algorithm for setColor seems
straightforward.
 Change foreground to the new color
 Redraw the current value of the die
 The second step is similar to setValue, but
setValue requires the value to be sent as a
parameter, and dieView doesn’t store this
value anywhere. Once the pips have been
turned on the value is discarded!

Python Programming, 2/e 110

Developing a GUI
 To implement setColor, we tweak
setValue so that it remembers the
current value:
self.value = value
 This line stores the value parameter in
an instance variable called value.
 With the modification to setValue,
setColor is a breeze.

Python Programming, 2/e 111

Developing a GUI
def setColor(self, color):
self.foreground = color
self.setValue(self.value)
 Notice how the last line calls setValue to
draw the die, passing along the value from
the last time setValue was called.
 Now that the widgets are under control, we
can implement the poker GUI! The
constructor will create all the widgets and set
up the interface for later interactions.

Python Programming, 2/e 112

Developing a GUI
class GraphicsInterface:

def __init__(self):
self.win = GraphWin("Dice Poker", 600, 400)
self.win.setBackground("green3")
banner = Text(Point(300,30), "Python Poker Parlor")
banner.setSize(24)
banner.setFill("yellow2")
banner.setStyle("bold")
banner.draw(self.win)
self.msg = Text(Point(300,380), "Welcome to the dice table.")
self.msg.setSize(18)
self.msg.draw(self.win)
self.createDice(Point(300,100), 75)
self.buttons = []
self.addDiceButtons(Point(300,170), 75, 30)
b = Button(self.win, Point(300, 230), 400, 40, "Roll Dice")
self.buttons.append(b)
b = Button(self.win, Point(300, 280), 150, 40, "Score")
self.buttons.append(b)
b = Button(self.win, Point(570,375), 40, 30, "Quit")
self.buttons.append(b)
self.money = Text(Point(300,325), "$100")
self.money.setSize(18)
self.money.draw(self.win)

Python Programming, 2/e 113

Developing a GUI
 Did you notice that the creation of the dice and their
associated buttons were moved into a couple of
helper methods?
 def createDice(self, center, size):
center.move(-3*size,0)
self.dice = []
for i in range(5):
view = ColorDieView(self.win, center, size)
self.dice.append(view)
center.move(1.5*size,0)

def addDiceButtons(self, center, width, height):

center.move(-3*width, 0)
for i in range(1,6):
label = "Die %d" % (i)
b = Button(self.win, center, width, height, label)
self.buttons.append(b)
center.move(1.5*width, 0)
 center is a Point variable used to calculate the positions of the widgets.

Python Programming, 2/e 114

Developing a GUI
 The methods setMoney and showResult
display text in an interface window. Since the
constructor created and positioned the Text
objects, all we have to do is call setText!
 Similarly, the output method setDice calls
the setValue method of the appropriate
DieView objects in dice.

Python Programming, 2/e 115

Developing a GUI
def setMoney(self, amt):
self.money.setText("$%d" % (amt))

def showResult(self, msg, score):

if score > 0:
text = "%s! You win $%d" % (msg, score)
else:
text = "You rolled %s" % (msg)
self.msg.setText(text)

def setDice(self, values):

for i in range(5):
self.dice[i].setValue(values[i])

Python Programming, 2/e 116

Developing the GUI
 The wantToPlay method will wait for
the user to click either “Roll Dice” or
“Quit”. The chooser helper method
can be used.
 def wantToPlay(self):
ans = self.choose(["Roll Dice", "Quit"])
self.msg.setText("")
return ans == "Roll Dice"

 After the user clicks a button, setting

msg to "" clears out any messages.

Python Programming, 2/e 117

Developing the GUI
 The chooseDice method is a little
more complicated – it will return a list
of the indexes of the dice the user
wishes to roll.
 In our GUI, the user chooses dice by
clicking on the corresponding button.
 We need to maintain a list of selected
buttons.

Python Programming, 2/e 118

Developing a GUI
 Each time a button is clicked, that die is
either chosen (its index appended to
the list) or unchosen (its index removed
from the list).
 The color of the corresponding
dieView will then reflect the current
status of the dice.

Python Programming, 2/e 119

Developing a GUI
def chooseDice(self):
# choices is a list of the indexes of the selected dice
choices = [] # No dice chosen yet
while True:
# Wait for user to click a valid button
b = self.choose(["Die 1", "Die 2", "Die 3", "Die 4", "Die 5",
"Roll Dice", "Score"])
if b[0] == "D": # User clicked a die button
i = eval(b[4]) - 1 # Translate label to die index
if i in choices: # Currently selected, unselect it
choices.remove(i)
self.dice[i].setColor("black")
else: # Currently unselected, select it
choices.append(i)
self.dice[i].setColor("gray")
else: # User clicked Roll or Score
for d in self.dice: # Revert appearance of all dice
d.setColor("black")
if b == "Score": # Score clicked, ignore choices
return []
elif choices != []: # Don't accept Roll unless some
return choices # dice are actually selected

Python Programming, 2/e 120

Developing a GUI
 The only missing piece of our interface
class is the close method.
 To close the graphical version, we just
need to close the graphics window.
 def close(self):
self.win.close()

Python Programming, 2/e 121

Developing a GUI
 Lastly, we need a few lines to get the
graphical poker playing program
started! We use GraphicsInterface
in place of TextInterface.
 inter = GraphicsInterface()
app = PokerApp(inter)
app.run()

Python Programming, 2/e 122

OO Concepts
 The OO approach helps us to produce
complex software that is more reliable
and cost-effective.
 OO is comprised of three principles:
 Encapsulation
 Polymorphism
 Inheritance

Python Programming, 2/e 123

Encapsulation
 As you’ll recall, objects know stuff and do
stuff, combining data and operations.
 This packaging of data with a set of
operations that can be performed on the data
is called encapsulation.
 Encapsulation provides a convenient way to
compose complex problems that corresponds
to our intuitive view of how the world works.

Python Programming, 2/e 124

Encapsulation
 From a design standpoint, encapsulation
separates the concerns of “what” vs. “how”.
The implementation of an object is
independent of its use.
 The implementation can change, but as long
as the interface is preserved, the object will
not break.
 Encapsulation allows us to isolate major
design decisions, especially ones subject to
change.
Python Programming, 2/e 125
Encapsulation
 Another advantage is that it promotes code
reuse. It allows us to package up general
components that can be used from one
program to the next.
 The DieView and Button classes are good
examples of this.
 Encapsulation alone makes a system object-
based. To be object-oriented, we must also
have the properties of polymorphism and
inheritance.
Python Programming, 2/e 126
Polymorphism
 Literally, polymorphism means “many
forms.”
 When used in object-oriented literature,
this refers to the fact that what an
object does in response to a message
(a method call) depends on the type or
class of the object.

Python Programming, 2/e 127

Polymorphism
 Our poker program illustrated one aspect of
this by the PokerApp class being used with
both TextInterface and
GraphicsInterface.
 When PokerApp called the showDice
method, the TextInterface showed the
dice one way and the GraphicsInterface
did it another way.

Python Programming, 2/e 128

Polymorphism
 With polymorphism, a given line in a
program may invoke a completely
different method from one moment to
the next.
 Suppose you had a list of graphics
objects to draw on the screen – a
mixture of Circle, Rectangle,
Polygon, etc.
Python Programming, 2/e 129
Polymorphism
 You could draw all the items with this
simple code:
for obj in objects:
obj.draw(win)
 What operation does this loop really
execute?
 When obj is a circle, it executes the
draw method from the circle class, etc.

Python Programming, 2/e 130

Polymorphism
 Polymorphism gives object-oriented
systems the flexibility for each object to
perform an action just the way that it
should be performed for that object.

Python Programming, 2/e 131

Inheritance
 The idea behind inheritance is that a new
class can be defined to borrow behavior from
another class.
 The new class (the one doing the borrowing)
is called a subclass, and the other (the one
being borrowed from) is called a superclass.
 This is an idea our examples have not
included.

Python Programming, 2/e 132

Inheritance
 Say we’re building an employee
management system.
 We might have a class called
Employee that contains general
information common to all employees.
There might be a method called
homeAddress that returns an
employee’s home address.
Python Programming, 2/e 133
Inheritance
 Within the class of employees, we
might distinguish between salaried and
hourly employees with
SalariedEmployee and
HourlyEmployee, respectively.
 Each of these two classes would be a
subclass of Employee, and would
share the homeAddress method.
Python Programming, 2/e 134
Inheritance
 Each subclass could have its own
monthlyPay function, since pay is computed
differently for each class of employee.
 Inheritance has two benefits:
 We can structure the classes of a system to avoid
duplication of operations, e.g. there is one
homeAddress method for HourlyEmployee and
SalariedEmployee.
 New classes can be based on existing classes,
promoting code reuse.

Python Programming, 2/e 135

Inheritance
 We could have used inheritance to build the
DieView class.
 Our first DieView class did not provide a
way to change the appearance of the dir.
 Rather than modifying the original class
definition, we could have left the original
alone and created a new subclass called
ColorDieView.

Python Programming, 2/e 136

Inheritance
 A ColorDieView is just like DieView,
except it has an additional method!
class ColorDieView(DieView):

def setValue(self, value):

self.value = value
DieView.setValue(self, value)

def setColor(self, color):

self.foreground = color
self.setValue(self.value)

Python Programming, 2/e 137

Inheritance
 The first line (class ColorDieView(DieView): ) says
that we are defining a new class
ColorDieView that is based on (i.e. is a
subclass of) DieView.
 Inside the new class we define two methods.
 The second method, setColor, adds the
new operation. To make it work, setValue
also needed to be slightly modified.

Python Programming, 2/e 138

Inheritance
 The setValue method in ColorDieView
redefines or overrides the definition of
setValue that was provided in the DieView
class.
 The setValue method in the new class first
stores the value and then relies on the
setValue method of the superclass
DieView to actually draw the pips.

Python Programming, 2/e 139

Inheritance
 The normal approach to set the value,
self.setValue(value), would refer to
the setValue method of the
ColorDieView class, since self is an
instance of ColorDieView.
 To call the superclass’s setValue method,
it’s necessary to put the class name where
the object would normally go:
DieView.setValue(self,value)

Python Programming, 2/e 140

Inheritance
 DieView.setValue(self,value)
 The actual object to which the method
is applied is sent as the first parameter.

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