How to move Sprite in Pygame

Question

im trying to get my image (bird) to move up and down on the screen but i cant figure out how to do it here is what i tried im sure its way off but im trying to figure it out

Answer 1

As stated by ecline6, bird is the least of your worries at this point.

Consider reading this book..

For now, First let's clean up your code...

import pygame
import os

# let's address the class a little later..

pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((640, 400))
# you only need to call the following once,so pull them out of the  while loop.
bird = pygame.image.load(os.path.join('C:\Python27', 'player.png'))
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

running = True
while running:
    event = pygame.event.poll()
    if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
        running = False

    screen.fill((255, 255, 255)) # fill the screen
    screen.blit(bird, (0, 0))    # then blit the bird

    pygame.display.update() # Just do one thing, update/flip.

    clock.tick(40) # This call will regulate your FPS (to be 40 or less)

Now the reason that your "bird" is not moving is:
When you blit the image, ie: screen.blit(bird, (0, 0)),
The (0,0) is constant, so it won't move.

Here's the final code, with the output you want (try it) and read the comments:

import pygame
import os

# it is better to have an extra variable, than an extremely long line.
img_path = os.path.join('C:\Python27', 'player.png')

class Bird(object):  # represents the bird, not the game
    def __init__(self):
        """ The constructor of the class """
        self.image = pygame.image.load(img_path)
        # the bird's position
        self.x = 0
        self.y = 0

    def handle_keys(self):
        """ Handles Keys """
        key = pygame.key.get_pressed()
        dist = 1 # distance moved in 1 frame, try changing it to 5
        if key[pygame.K_DOWN]: # down key
            self.y += dist # move down
        elif key[pygame.K_UP]: # up key
            self.y -= dist # move up
        if key[pygame.K_RIGHT]: # right key
            self.x += dist # move right
        elif key[pygame.K_LEFT]: # left key
            self.x -= dist # move left

    def draw(self, surface):
        """ Draw on surface """
        # blit yourself at your current position
        surface.blit(self.image, (self.x, self.y))


pygame.init()
screen = pygame.display.set_mode((640, 400))

bird = Bird() # create an instance
clock = pygame.time.Clock()

running = True
while running:
    # handle every event since the last frame.
    for event in pygame.event.get():
        if event.type == pygame.QUIT:
            pygame.quit() # quit the screen
            running = False

    bird.handle_keys() # handle the keys

    screen.fill((255,255,255)) # fill the screen with white
    bird.draw(screen) # draw the bird to the screen
    pygame.display.update() # update the screen

    clock.tick(40)