You will find this sort of problem a lot easier using a dictionary:
def validate(choice):
options = {
1: extrasquare,
2: drawastar,
3: drawit,
4: circle,
5: square,
6: turtle.clear,
7: turtle.bye,
8: exit # Move your exit action to a separate function for simplicity
}
if choice in options:
options[choice]()
else:
print "Error: %i is not a recognized choice" % i
Your existing code won't raise an exception since you only try a lot of ifs and dont hit an exception condition.
You could do the same with a try by changing the last lines two:
try:
options[choice]()
except KeyError:
print "Error : %i is not a recognized choice" % choice
However it doesn't really enhance the code .