Turning a letter input into integer

Question

Hello;
I've been trying to make a very simple rock, paper, scissors game and to get the user's choice and convert it to a number, I did this:
r=1
p=2
s=3
user=int(input("r, p or s?")

And I realized that's impossible to do. So while it's important for me to have the user input a letter rather than a number, how can I convert it?

*Update!*
I've managed to make it work using a bunch of ifs, but is there any other more efficient ways of doing this? Here's the new code:
user=input("R, P or S?")
if user=="r":
user=1
elif user=="p":
user=2
elif user=="s":
user=3

Answer 1

You could just keep the char value.

if(user == 'r')
// chose rock
else if (user == 'p')
// chose paper
else
// chose scissors

I'm not sure what you found "impossible to do", you did it in your example.

Answer 2

In regards to your update.
You may be able to use a dictionary.
Where you make r the key for 1.
p the key for 2.
etc..
I don't use python though, so I'm not sure how the syntax is.
Tutorial:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/python/python_dictionary.htm
Once you have the dictionary you can use the input directly to set the value of the 'user' variable.

Answer 3

What I was finding impossible to do, was making Python switch between two sides of an equation. If r is 1 then I thought it had to consider the integer value of r to be 1 and use it when it was told to.
It seems to me like the dictionary kinda makes sense but I started learning programming like yesterday and it's going to take me some time to figure out how to use the dictionary. Thank you for sharing. :)