Using dialogue box input as variable in experiment

Coding
1

Hello,
I am trying to use some info in the dialogue box at the start of the experiment as a variable later in the same task.
Here is my code for the dialogue box:

dateStr = time.strftime("%b_%d_%H%M", time.localtime())#add the current time
info = {} #a dictionary
#present dialog to collect info
info['participant'] = ''
info['threshold'] = ''
dlg = gui.DlgFromDict(info, title = 'Vis100 TDCS Version') #(and from psychopy import gui at top of script) 
if not dlg.OK:
    core.quit()  
    
def makePath(path):
    try:
        os.makedirs(path)
    except OSError as exception:
        if exception.errno != errno.EEXIST:
            raise

outputParentDir = os.environ['psychopyOutputParent']
participant = info['participant']
participantFolder = outputParentDir + '/' + str(participant)
task = 'Vis100 Staircase'
taskFolder = participantFolder + '/' + task
txtPath = taskFolder+'/txt/'
xlsPath = taskFolder+'/xls/'
psydatPath = taskFolder+'/psydat/'
figurePath = taskFolder + '/figure/'

#Create directories. Doing it this way will raise any errors except directory exists errors.
makePath(outputParentDir)
makePath(participantFolder)
makePath(taskFolder)
makePath(txtPath)
makePath(xlsPath)
makePath(psydatPath)
makePath(figurePath)

#make a text file to save data
fileName = info['participant'] + dateStr
dataFile = open(txtPath+fileName+'.txt', 'w')
dataFile.write('correctStimWas	stim1	stim2	correct\n	')

I am confused about where the data input from the dialogue box saves to?
When I try and create a variable ‘threshold’ later in my experiment e.g threshold = ??? I’m not sure what to write here to access the threshold input from the dialogue box.

Thanks for your help,
Christina

2

Hope you can see the code properly now… had to edit the post several times before ``` worked for some strange reason.

1 Like
3

Have you looked at the docs here?

It should be in your dict named ‘info’ that you passed into gui.DlgFromDict .

threshold = info[‘threshold’]

1 Like
4

Hi Daniel,
Thanks for your help.
Yes, I spend hours studying all the documentation, but I am afraid I am well and truly special needs when it comes to python!
The good news is that threshold = info[‘threshold’] nearly worked, but it was giving error messages because it was treating it as a string and then trying to do maths with it later on in the programme.
But threshold = int(info[‘threshold’]) did the trick.

Thanks again,
Christina

5

Glad you figured it out! As long you’re reading and continue to learn and bang away you’ll get it, it can take a while to get comfortable.

6

I think that because you set up your info[‘threshold’] as a string at the beginning, even if the user types a number it is stored as a string. Try replacing:
info[‘threshold’] = ‘’
with
info[‘threshold’] = 0
This way you should not need later to convert the string to an int. Although of course your solution is also fine.

7

Thanks for the tip Marco, I’ll remember that for future use.
Best wishes,
Christina