Calling on a Variable using other Variables

[deanhystad]

Instead of using a variable to store the color you could use a function that returns the color. As I said, somewhere you need code.

Your code is odd. I don't have any pygame experience at all, but I think you would want to some sort of collection object instead of having a named variable for each thing. Since the squares on the board are an important part of the game I might make a class to hold all the information for a square such as the location, the background color, and any chess piece landing on the square:

class Square():
    '''A location on the board'''
    def __init__(self, rank, file):
        self.rank = rank
        self.file = file
        self.name = 'abcdefgh'[rank]+str(file+1)
        self.background = [0,0,120] if (rank+file)%2 else [0,0,0]
        x = (rank)*100  # Not sure of pygame coordinates so this could be wrong
        y = (file)*100
        self.rectangle = [x, y, 100, 100]
        self.occupant = None

    def draw(self):
        '''Draw self on screen'''
        self.square = pygame.draw.rect(screen, self.color, self.rectangle)
        if self.occupant:
            '''Draw image for piece occupying square'''

    @property
    def piece(self):
        '''Return occupant'''
        return self.occupant

    @piece.setter
    def place(self, piece):
       '''Set the occupant.  Redraw the square'''
        self.occupant = piece
        self.draw()

In addition to storing information a class can also have actions. My Square class would have an action (method) to draw the square and another for adding or removing a chess piece. I might make the latter a property so I can use the same property to see or set what piece occupies a square.

The board is just a collection of squares, so I make a class that represents that.

class Board():
    '''A grid of Squares'''
    def __init__(self):
        self.ranks = []
        for rank in range(8):
            self.rank.append([Square(rank, file) for file in range(8)])

    def square(self, rank, file):
        """Return square at rank/file"""
        return self.rank[rank][file]

    def move(self, r1, f1, r2, f2):
        '''Move piece from r1, f1 to r2, f2'''
        self.square(r2, f2).piece = self.square(r1, f1).piece
        self.square(r1, f1).piece = None

    def draw(self):
        '''Draw the board'''
        for rank in self.ranks:
            for square in rank:
                square.draw()

Now I can make and draw a chess board in two lines:

board = Board()
board.draw()

And I can move a piece in one line

board.move(startRank, startFile, endRank, endFile)