Modules program design: robot sim | Intro to computer science - Python | Khan Academy

- [Instructor] Let's design a program

that imports functionality
from another file.

When programming teams
collaborate on projects,

they're often writing code
across multiple files.

They package their work into functions

and then share them for
other team members to use.

This is just another form of a module.

Here, my teammate wrote a module

for simulating a robot's movement.

We can open up the file and
take a look at the code,

but we may not always have
the background knowledge

or time to understand the
details of how it works.

The good news is, that doesn't matter.

The only thing I need to understand

is the documentation of how to use it.

If you notice up here,

we've been writing our code
in a file called main.py.

The .py is the file
extension for Python code,

just like jpeg is for images.

Then by convention in Python,

we name the file with
our main logic, main.

In the Khan Academy IDE,
when we press the run button,

it runs the code in main.py.

However, we can add other files
or modules to our program,

then import them into main.py
and use their functions there.

So if we go back to our main.py file,

we can import the robot module

and then call one of these functions.

Okay, so let's start

with the first function
in the robot module,

which is called reverse.

It takes one input or
argument, the direction,

and from the doc string here,

I see that it rotates
the robot 180 degrees

and returns its new direction.

It also says the direction
can either be left or right.

So if I go back to main.py,

I can call this function

using the module name, robot.reverse.

It's argument can be the
string left or right.

So let's say left for now,

and then we know it
returns the new direction.

So I wanna store that value in a variable.

Let's run it and see what it does.

Nice.

So this function is returning right,

because it's reversing left.

And then if I swap that and
I try and reverse right,

it returns left.

Okay, not that interesting by itself.

Let's see what this draw function does.

It takes three inputs,
the position, direction,

and grid size, and it says it
displays the robot's position

and direction on the grid.

Note that it doesn't say
that it returned something,

so it might just display and
not return an output value.

Back to main.py, let's call robot.draw.

And we wanna give it a
position, I don't know,

let's say three, and then
let's pass in the direction

we got back from reverse.

And it needs a grid size,

which I guess needs to be
bigger than the position.

So let's say 10.

Okay, nice.

It looks like it's printing
a little representation

of the robot, and we can see
that the arrow is pointing left

because the robot is facing left.

Let's draw the robot
before we reversed it too.

The position and grid
size will be the same,

but the direction will be right,

so let's actually store that
in the variable up here.

And actually let's store
the position and grid size

in a variable as well,

so we're not repeating
three, three, 10, 10.

Note that I'm not making any
changes to the robot.py file.

I'm just using this module.

All of my code is going in main.py.

Let's try one more function, move forward.

We see that it takes a position,
direction, and grid size,

and it returns the robot's new position.

So back to main.py, we
call robot.moveforward

and we pass in the robot position,

the direction, and the size.

And since it returns the new position,

we're going to store the
result of that function call

in the robot position variable.

And so we can see what happens.

Let's call draw afterward.

Now that we've experimented,

we've got a good sense for
how the robot module works.

So let's try building this into
a more interesting program.

Maybe we want the robot to randomly decide

whether it moves forward
or reverses at any point.

So I could generate a random number,

and depending on the result,
decide which function to call.

That means I'm gonna
need the random module.

By convention, usually we
alphabetize our imports,

so I'm gonna put random first.

And because there are
two possible outcomes,

I'll generate a random
number between one and two.

If I get a one, I'll have
the robot move forward,

and if I get a two, I'll have it reverse.

Now I wanna generate three random numbers,

because I want the robot to
take three random actions.

I don't want it

to perform the same one
random action three times.

So I need to have three
separate randint function calls.

In fact, I'll just copy
this whole block of code,

because I want all of this
functionality to repeat.

Now, if I run the program a few times,

I can see that the
robot's moving randomly.

One last thing.

Maybe let's have the robot
start at a random position

each time too.

The robot's gotta start on the grid.

So the start should be one,

and the stop should be the grid size.

And now when I run the program,

the robot's starting at a
random position each time.

Pretty cool how quickly we were able

to get a complex program
like that up and running.

That's the power of using modules.

We can build off a
functionality other people

have already written to
expand the possibilities

of our programs.