If-and statement not working

Builder
1

Hi
A simple if-and statement is not working and I would like to know why.
I have a simple white rectangle called rec. I want to change the fill color when it is clicked.
Here is the code I tried:

if mouse.isPressedIn(rec) and rec.fillColor == 'white':
    rec.fillColor = 'red'

I also tried the following:

if mouse.isPressedIn(rec):
    if rec.fillColor == 'white':
        rec.fillColor = 'red'

I know that the following code works, but I don’t know why the above code is not working

if mouse.isPressedIn(rec):
    rec.fillColor = 'red'

Thanks for any help!
Best, M

2

Hello M11,

what does it mean the if-construction does not work? The if-expression never evaluates as “true” although you expect it to evaluate as true?

If

if mouse.isPressedIn(rec):

works, then the and-part is wrong. What value does rec.fillColor take in cases you expect the if-construction to be true? You could add a print-statement to find out:

print("fillColor: ", rec.fillColor)

fillColor is array_like, str according to the documentation and should give you colour coordinates.
psychopy.colors - For working with colors — PsychoPy v2022.1.2 (I haven’t tried it yet).

Best wishes Jens

3

Hello Jens
Thank you for your reply!
I think that I do not fully understand your answer.
When I click on the rectangle with the previous two codes the color (white) does not change.
I always see a white rectangle.
As you suggested, I tried to print the value of the rectangle when I press the mouse. The following value was printed: [1 1 1].
I adapted the code (e.g. instead of “white” I wrote “[1 1 1]”, the same I did with red) and I still have the same problem that the color of the rectangle is still white.
Do have another suggestion for me what I can change in my code?
Thank you very much!
Mark

4

Hello Mark,

add a code-component before your stimuli and mouse. In the Begin Experiment tab add

white = [1, 1, 1]

In the Each Frame tab add

if mouse.isPressedIn(rec) and (rec.fillColor == white).all():
    rec.fillColor = "red"

This should change the rectangle fill color to red when you click in the rectangle.

Best wishes Jens

5

Hello Jens
Unfortunately, the code does not work. I get a invalid syntax error and the information “Experiment ended with exit code 1 [pid:16732]”. I also tried to exclude the third comma in [1,1,1,] but without success.

Best, Mark

6

Hello M11,

sorry for the extra comma. The attached toy-experiment works for me.

ChangeColor.psyexp (9.6 KB)

Best wishes Jens

7

For me, too : ). Thank you very much!
Only an additional short question, what does .all() in this context mean? (why is re.fillColor == white not enough?)

Best, Mark

8

Hello Mark,

as I wrote earlier, fillColor is a list. When you print the value of fillColor to the console, you see that it has always the structure [x, y, z]. So, it is a list. When you compare a list, you have to compare any or all list-elements. Therefore you need a.all() or a.any() (a = your list).

white is just a variable, you could write

(rec.fillColor == [1, 1, 1]).all()

instead. It is just easier to read IMHO than [1, 1, 1].

Best wishes Jens

9

Behind the scenes, fillColor is a Color object which supplies it’s own value in the correct color space when accessed. The object itself knows how to do comparisons to strings and lists and etc. so you can also do:

rec._fillColor == "red"

(_fillColor is the behind-the-scenes object from which fillColor is accessed)

1 Like
10

@TParsons

cool to know. This does throw an error message about an ambiguous comparison but I couldn’t get it to evaluate as true.

Best wishes Jens