I like Chemistry.
In my experience, the best way to get rid of repetitive almost-the-same things, like the loops you have, is usually found in a hash. Here's my suggestion. I'm also interested in any comments or suggestions.
Changes:
- Added more graceful way to exit.
- Made the tests case-sensitive (because element symbols are case-sensitive. May be too strict, then, for element names, but maybe not. Depends on your teacher.. :-)
- Removed three loops, replacing them with one.
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Chemistry::Elements qw/get_name get_Z get_symbol/;
my $test_type = shift || '';
print "ChemTest. Testing your knowledge of the Periodic Table.\n";
print "Test by name, number or symbol\n";
die "\n\tUsage: $0 [name|number|symbol]\n\n"
if $test_type !~ /name|number|symbol/;
print "Testing by $test_type\n";
print "Enter 'quit' at any prompt to quit.\n";
while(1){
my $number = int(rand 109) + 1;
my $name = &get_name($number);
my $symbol = &get_symbol($number);
my %element = (
'number' => $number,
'name' => $name,
'symbol' => $symbol
);
my $given = $element{$test_type};
print "\nElement $test_type is $given\n";
delete $element{$test_type};
foreach my $answer(keys %element ){
print "Enter the $answer: ";
chomp (my $guess = <STDIN>);
die "Thanks for playing\n" if $guess eq "quit";
if ($guess eq $element{$answer}) {
print "Correct. ";
} else {
print "Incorrect. ";
}
print "$element{$answer} is the $answer for $given\n";
}
}