Return a random line from a file when user enters a specific text I am a beginner trying to fetch a random line from a file and wondering if this code can be improved. Should I use try and catch in this case? Should I take a parameter for the function "quote"? How can I take several alternatives for searchText? (E.g. "hello", "hi" or "hey" but one is enough to return true.) 

def getInputFromUser(inputText, verifier, error=None):
    """
    General function to get input from the user, repeating the question until verifier returns true
    """
    while True:
        userInput = input(inputText)
        if not verifier or verifier(userInput):
            return userInput
        elif error:
            print(error)

def quote():
    """
    Return a random line from a file if user enters the text "hello"
    """
    searchText = "hello"
    text = getInputFromUser("Enter a sentence with the words 'hello', 'hi' or 'hey': ", lambda inputText: inputText)

    if searchText in text:
        lineFetched = random.choice(open('myquotes.txt').readlines())
        print("My quote: ", lineFetched)
    else:
        quote()
When working with files, you should wrap open calls in a with statement like this:

if search_text in text:
    with open('myquotes.txt') as fh:
        line_fetched = random.choice(fh.readlines())
    print("My quote: ", line_fetched)
else:
    quote()


If you want to make it possible to match any of multiple words like "hello", "hi",
then you'd need a helper function, for example:

def text_contains_any_of(text, words):
    for term in words:
        if term in text:
            return True
    return False


And then change your code to use this:

words = ("hello", "hi")

if text_contains_any_of(text, words):
    with open('myquotes.txt') as fh:
        line_fetched = random.choice(fh.readlines())
    print("My quote: ", line_fetched)


In the above examples I renamed the variable and method names to follow PEP8.