Making a certain statement loop forever in Python

Question

while 1 == 1:
    do = raw_input('What would you like to do?')

In the above example you can see that the code is meant to make something loop forever, for example:

if do == 'x':
    print 'y'
elif do == 'z':
    print 'a'

So this if statement has been carried out and I want the raw_input to be carried out again so that the person can enter something else and the program goes on again.

I would not like to put the entire program in a

while True:

program or a

while 1 != 2:

statement.

Answer 1

Normally you do this until a certain condition is met, for example, the user types q to quit; otherwise it is just an infinite loop and you would need to force quit the entire program.

Try this logic instead:

result = raw_input('What would you like to do? Type q to quit: ')

while result.lower() != 'q':
    if result == 'x':
       print 'y'
    if result == 'z':
       print 'a'
    result = raw_input('What would you like to do? Type q to quit: ')
print('Quitting. Good bye!')

Answer 2

def user_input():

    do = raw_input('What would you like to do?')

    if do == 'x':
        print 'y'
        user_input()

    elif do == 'z':
        print 'a'
        user_input()

    elif do =='quit':
        print 'exiting user input'

    else:
        user_input()

user_input()

The above uses some recursive calls and is less succinct than a while statement, but would work if you are looking to avoid using while.