Develop Reference

Python Inserting a string

I need to insert a string (character by character) into another string at every 3rd position
For example:- string_1:-wwwaabkccgkll
String_2:- toadhp
Now I need to insert string2 char by char into string1 at every third position
So the output must be wwtaaobkaccdgkhllp
Need in Python.. even Java is ok
So i tried this
Test_str="hiimdumbiknow"
challenge="toadh"
new_st=challenge [k]
Last=list(test_str)
K=0
For i in range(Len(test_str)):
if(i%3==0):
last.insert(i,new_st)
K+=1
and the output i get
thitimtdutmbtiknow

You can split test_str into sub-strings to length 2, and then iterate merging them with challenge:
def concat3(test_str, challenge):
chunks = [test_str[i:i+2] for i in range(0,len(test_str),2)]
result = []
i = j = 0
while i<len(chunks) or j<len(challenge):
if i<len(chunks):
result.append(chunks[i])
i += 1
if j<len(challenge):
result.append(challenge[j])
j += 1
return ''.join(result)
test_str = "hiimdumbiknow"
challenge = "toadh"
print(concat3(test_str, challenge))
# hitimoduambdikhnow
This method works even if the lengths of test_str and challenge are mismatching. (The remaining characters in the longest string will be appended at the end.)

You can split Test_str in to groups of two letters and then re-join with each letter from challenge in between as follows;
import itertools
print(''.join(f'{two}{letter}' for two, letter in itertools.zip_longest([Test_str[i:i+2] for i in range(0,len(Test_str),2)], challenge, fillvalue='')))
Output:
hitimoduambdikhnow
*edited to split in to groups of two rather than three as originally posted

you can try this, make an iter above the second string and iterate over the first one and select which character should be part of the final string according the position
def add3(s1, s2):
def n():
try:
k = iter(s2)
for i,j in enumerate(s1):
yield (j if (i==0 or (i+1)%3) else next(k))
except:
try:
yield s1[i+1:]
except:
pass
return ''.join(n())

def insertstring(test_str,challenge):
result = ''
x = [x for x in test_str]
y = [y for y in challenge]
j = 0
for i in range(len(x)):
if i % 2 != 0 or i == 0:
result += x[i]
else:
if j < 5:
result += y[j]
result += x[i]
j += 1
get_last_element = x[-1]
return result + get_last_element
print(insertstring(test_str,challenge))
#output: hitimoduambdikhnow

How to change uppercase & lowercase alternatively in a string?

I want to create a new string from a given string with alternate uppercase and lowercase.
I have tried iterating over the string and changing first to uppercase into a new string and then to lower case into another new string again.
def myfunc(x):
even = x.upper()
lst = list(even)
for itemno in lst:
if (itemno % 2) !=0:
even1=lst[1::2].lowercase()
itemno=itemno+1
even2=str(even1)
print(even2)
Since I cant change the given string I need a good way of creating a new string alternate caps.

Here's a onliner
"".join([x.upper() if i%2 else x.lower() for i,x in enumerate(mystring)])

You can simply randomly choose for each letter in the old string if you should lowercase or uppercase it, like this:
import random
def myfunc2(old):
new = ''
for c in old:
lower = random.randint(0, 1)
if lower:
new += c.lower()
else:
new += c.upper()
return new

Here's one that returns a new string using with alternate caps:
def myfunc(x):
seq = []
for i, v in enumerate(x):
seq.append(v.upper() if i % 2 == 0 else v.lower())
return ''.join(seq)

This does the job also
def foo(input_message):
c = 0
output_message = ""
for m in input_message:
if (c%2==0):
output_message = output_message + m.lower()
else:
output_message = output_message + m.upper()
c = c + 1
return output_message

Here's a solution using itertools which utilizes string slicing:
from itertools import chain, zip_longest
x = 'inputstring'
zipper = zip_longest(x[::2].lower(), x[1::2].upper(), fillvalue='')
res = ''.join(chain.from_iterable(zipper))
# 'iNpUtStRiNg'

Using a string slicing:
from itertools import zip_longest
s = 'example'
new_s = ''.join(x.upper() + y.lower()
for x, y in zip_longest(s[::2], s[1::2], fillvalue=''))
# ExAmPlE
Using an iterator:
s_iter = iter(s)
new_s = ''.join(x.upper() + y.lower()
for x, y in zip_longest(s_iter, s_iter, fillvalue=''))
# ExAmPlE
Using the function reduce():
def func(x, y):
if x[-1].islower():
return x + y.upper()
else:
return x + y.lower()
new_s = reduce(func, s) # eXaMpLe

This code also returns alternative caps string:-
def alternative_strings(strings):
for i,x in enumerate(strings):
if i % 2 == 0:
print(x.upper(), end="")
else:
print(x.lower(), end= "")
return ''
print(alternative_strings("Testing String"))

def myfunc(string):
# Un-hash print statements to watch python build out the string.
# Script is an elementary example of using an enumerate function.
# An enumerate function tracks an index integer and its associated value as it moves along the string.
# In this example we use arithmetic to determine odd and even index counts, then modify the associated variable.
# After modifying the upper/lower case of the character, it starts adding the string back together.
# The end of the function then returns back with the new modified string.
#print(string)
retval = ''
for space, letter in enumerate(string):
if space %2==0:
retval = retval + letter.upper()
#print(retval)
else:
retval = retval + letter.lower()
#print(retval)
print(retval)
return retval
myfunc('Thisisanamazingscript')

Removing all instances of the second string from the first

The question states: Write code that takes two strings from the user, and returns what is left over if all instances of the second string is removed from the first. The second string is guaranteed to be no longer than two characters.
I started off with the following:
def remove(l1,l2):
string1 = l1
string2 = l2
result = ""
ctr = 0
while ctr < len(l1):
Since it cannot be longer than 2 characters I think I have to put in an if function as such:
if len(sub) == 2:
if (ctr + 1) < len(string) and string[ctr] == sub[0]

You could just use the replace method to remove all occurrences of the the second string from the first:
def remove(s1, s2):
return s1.replace(s2, "")
print remove("hello this is a test", "l")
For a manual method, you can use:
def remove(s1, s2):
newString = []
if len(s2) > 2:
return "The second argument cannot exceed two characters"
for c in s1:
if c not in s2:
newString.append(c)
return "".join(newString)
print remove("hello this is a test", "l")
Yields: heo this is a test

The code looks like this:
def remove(l1,l2):
string1 = l1
string2 = l2
ctr = 0
result = ""
while ctr < len(string1):
if string1[ctr : ctr + len(string2)] == string2:
ctr += len(string2)
else:
result += string1[ctr]
ctr += 1
return result
I got it resolved; just took me a little bit of time.

You could use list comprehension:
st1 = "Hello how are you"
st2 = "This is a test"
st3 = [i for i in st1 if i not in st2]
print ''.join(st3)

Using solely the slice method:
def remove_all(substr,theStr):
num=theStr.count(substr)
for i in range(len(theStr)):
finalStr=""
if theStr.find(substr)<0:
return theStr
elif theStr[i:i+len(substr)]==substr:
return theStr[0:i]+ theStr[i+len(substr*num):len(theStr)]

s1= input()
s2= input()
#get length of each string
l_s1,l_s2= len(s1),len(s2)
#list to store the answer
ans= list()
i=0
#check if more characters are left
#in s1 to b compared
#and length of substring of s1 remaining to
#be compared must be greater than or equal
#to the length of s2
while i<l_s1 and l_s1-i>=l_s2:
j=0
#compare the substring from s1 with s2
while j<l_s2 and s1[i+j]==s2[j]:
j+=1
#if string matches
#discard that substring of s1
#from solution
#and update the pointer i
#accordingly
if j==l_s2:
i+=j
#otherwise append the ith character to
#ans list
else:
ans.append(s1[i])
i+=1
#append if any characters remaining
while i<l_s1:
ans.append(s1[i])
i+=1
print(''.join(ans))
'''
Sample Testcase
1.
kapil
kd
kapil
2.
devansh
dev
ansh
3.
adarsh
ad
arsh
'''

Slice a list to max string size

I have a max length of a list item that I need to enforce. How would I accomplish the following:
MAX_LENGTH = 13
>>> str(["hello","david"])[:MAX_LENGTH]
"['hello', 'da"
==> ["hello", "da"]
I was thinking using ast.literal_eval, but was wondering what might be recommended here.

I would caution against this. There has to be safer things to do than this. At the very least you should never be splitting elements in half. For instance:
import sys
overrun = []
data = ["Hello,"] + ( ["buffer"] * 80 )
maxsize = 800
# sys.getsizeof(data) is now 840 in my implementation.
while True:
while sys.getsizeof(data) > maxsize:
overrun.append(data.pop())
do_something_with(data)
if overrun:
data, overrun = overrun, []
else:
break

Here is a simplified version of #AdamSmith's answer which I ended up using:
import sys
from copy import copy
def limit_list_size(ls, maxsize=800):
data = copy(ls)
while (sys.getsizeof(str(data)) > maxsize):
if not data: break
data.pop()
return data
Note that this will not split mid-word. And because this is returning a copy of the data, the user can see which items were excluded in the output. For example:
old_ls = [...]
new_ls = limit_list_size(old_ls)
overflow_ls = list(set(old_ls) - set(new_ls))

If you want MAX_LENGTH of your strings concatenated, you could do it with a loop pretty simply, using something like this:
def truncateStringList(myArray)
currentLength = 0
result = []
for string in myArray:
if (currentLength + len(string)) > MAX_LENGTH:
result.append(string[:len(string) + currentLength - MAX_LENGTH])
return result
else:
result.append(string)
return result
If you want it of the string representation, you are effectively adding 2 chars at the beginning of each element, [' or ', and two at the end, ', or '], so add 2 to current length before and after each element in the loop:
for string in myArray:
currentLength += 2
if (currentLength + len(string)) > MAX_LENGTH:
result.append(string[:len(string) + currentLength - MAX_LENGTH])
return result
else:
result.append(string)
currentLength += 2
return result

with loops:
max = 11
mylist = ['awdawdwad', 'uppps']
newlist = ','.join(mylist)
print mylist
c= [x for x in newlist if not x==',']
if len(c)>max:
newlist= list(newlist)
newlist.reverse()
for x in range(len(c)-max):
if newlist[0]==',':
del newlist[0]
del newlist[0] # delete two times
else:
del newlist[0]
while newlist[0]==',':
del newlist[0]
newlist.reverse()
cappedlist = ''.join(newlist).split(',')
print cappedlist

Finding longest substring in alphabetical order

EDIT: I am aware that a question with similar task was already asked in SO but I'm interested to find out the problem in this specific piece of code. I am also aware that this problem can be solved without using recursion.
The task is to write a program which will find (and print) the longest sub-string in which the letters occur in alphabetical order. If more than 1 equally long sequences were found, then the first one should be printed. For example, the output for a string abczabcd will be abcz.
I have solved this problem with recursion which seemed to pass my manual tests. However when I run an automated tests set which generate random strings, I have noticed that in some cases, the output is incorrect. For example:
if s = 'hixwluvyhzzzdgd', the output is hix instead of luvy
if s = 'eseoojlsuai', the output is eoo instead of jlsu
if s = 'drurotsxjehlwfwgygygxz', the output is dru instead of ehlw
After some time struggling, I couldn't figure out what is so special about these strings that causes the bug.
This is my code:
pos = 0
maxLen = 0
startPos = 0
endPos = 0
def last_pos(pos):
if pos < (len(s) - 1):
if s[pos + 1] >= s[pos]:
pos += 1
if pos == len(s)-1:
return len(s)
else:
return last_pos(pos)
return pos
for i in range(len(s)):
if last_pos(i+1) != None:
diff = last_pos(i) - i
if diff - 1 > maxLen:
maxLen = diff
startPos = i
endPos = startPos + diff
print s[startPos:endPos+1]

There are many things to improve in your code but making minimum changes so as to make it work. The problem is you should have if last_pos(i) != None: in your for loop (i instead of i+1) and you should compare diff (not diff - 1) against maxLen. Please read other answers to learn how to do it better.
for i in range(len(s)):
if last_pos(i) != None:
diff = last_pos(i) - i + 1
if diff > maxLen:
maxLen = diff
startPos = i
endPos = startPos + diff - 1

Here. This does what you want. One pass, no need for recursion.
def find_longest_substring_in_alphabetical_order(s):
groups = []
cur_longest = ''
prev_char = ''
for c in s.lower():
if prev_char and c < prev_char:
groups.append(cur_longest)
cur_longest = c
else:
cur_longest += c
prev_char = c
return max(groups, key=len) if groups else s
Using it:
>>> find_longest_substring_in_alphabetical_order('hixwluvyhzzzdgd')
'luvy'
>>> find_longest_substring_in_alphabetical_order('eseoojlsuai')
'jlsu'
>>> find_longest_substring_in_alphabetical_order('drurotsxjehlwfwgygygxz')
'ehlw'
Note: It will probably break on strange characters, has only been tested with the inputs you suggested. Since this is a "homework" question, I will leave you with the solution as is, though there is still some optimization to be done, I wanted to leave it a little bit understandable.

You can use nested for loops, slicing and sorted. If the string is not all lower-case then you can convert the sub-strings to lower-case before comparing using str.lower:
def solve(strs):
maxx = ''
for i in xrange(len(strs)):
for j in xrange(i+1, len(strs)):
s = strs[i:j+1]
if ''.join(sorted(s)) == s:
maxx = max(maxx, s, key=len)
else:
break
return maxx
Output:
>>> solve('hixwluvyhzzzdgd')
'luvy'
>>> solve('eseoojlsuai')
'jlsu'
>>> solve('drurotsxjehlwfwgygygxz')
'ehlw'

Python has a powerful builtin package itertools and a wonderful function within groupby
An intuitive use of the Key function can give immense mileage.
In this particular case, you just have to keep a track of order change and group the sequence accordingly. The only exception is the boundary case which you have to handle separately
Code
def find_long_cons_sub(s):
class Key(object):
'''
The Key function returns
1: For Increasing Sequence
0: For Decreasing Sequence
'''
def __init__(self):
self.last_char = None
def __call__(self, char):
resp = True
if self.last_char:
resp = self.last_char < char
self.last_char = char
return resp
def find_substring(groups):
'''
The Boundary Case is when an increasing sequence
starts just after the Decresing Sequence. This causes
the first character to be in the previous group.
If you do not want to handle the Boundary Case
seperately, you have to mak the Key function a bit
complicated to flag the start of increasing sequence'''
yield next(groups)
try:
while True:
yield next(groups)[-1:] + next(groups)
except StopIteration:
pass
groups = (list(g) for k, g in groupby(s, key = Key()) if k)
#Just determine the maximum sequence based on length
return ''.join(max(find_substring(groups), key = len))
Result
>>> find_long_cons_sub('drurotsxjehlwfwgygygxz')
'ehlw'
>>> find_long_cons_sub('eseoojlsuai')
'jlsu'
>>> find_long_cons_sub('hixwluvyhzzzdgd')
'luvy'

Simple and easy.
Code :
s = 'hixwluvyhzzzdgd'
r,p,t = '','',''
for c in s:
if p <= c:
t += c
p = c
else:
if len(t) > len(r):
r = t
t,p = c,c
if len(t) > len(r):
r = t
print 'Longest substring in alphabetical order is: ' + r
Output :
Longest substring in alphabetical order which appeared first: luvy

Here is a single pass solution with a fast loop. It reads each character only once. Inside the loop operations are limited to
1 string comparison (1 char x 1 char)
1 integer increment
2 integer subtractions
1 integer comparison
1 to 3 integer assignments
1 string assignment
No containers are used. No function calls are made. The empty string is handled without special-case code. All character codes, including chr(0), are properly handled. If there is a tie for the longest alphabetical substring, the function returns the first winning substring it encountered. Case is ignored for purposes of alphabetization, but case is preserved in the output substring.
def longest_alphabetical_substring(string):
start, end = 0, 0 # range of current alphabetical string
START, END = 0, 0 # range of longest alphabetical string yet found
prev = chr(0) # previous character
for char in string.lower(): # scan string ignoring case
if char < prev: # is character out of alphabetical order?
start = end # if so, start a new substring
end += 1 # either way, increment substring length
if end - start > END - START: # found new longest?
START, END = start, end # if so, update longest
prev = char # remember previous character
return string[START : END] # return longest alphabetical substring
Result
>>> longest_alphabetical_substring('drurotsxjehlwfwgygygxz')
'ehlw'
>>> longest_alphabetical_substring('eseoojlsuai')
'jlsu'
>>> longest_alphabetical_substring('hixwluvyhzzzdgd')
'luvy'
>>>

a lot more looping, but it gets the job done
s = raw_input("Enter string")
fin=""
s_pos =0
while s_pos < len(s):
n=1
lng=" "
for c in s[s_pos:]:
if c >= lng[n-1]:
lng+=c
n+=1
else :
break
if len(lng) > len(fin):
fin= lng`enter code here`
s_pos+=1
print "Longest string: " + fin

def find_longest_order():
`enter code here`arr = []
`enter code here`now_long = ''
prev_char = ''
for char in s.lower():
if prev_char and char < prev_char:
arr.append(now_long)
now_long = char
else:
now_long += char
prev_char = char
if len(now_long) == len(s):
return now_long
else:
return max(arr, key=len)
def main():
print 'Longest substring in alphabetical order is: ' + find_longest_order()
main()

Simple and easy to understand:
s = "abcbcd" #The original string
l = len(s) #The length of the original string
maxlenstr = s[0] #maximum length sub-string, taking the first letter of original string as value.
curlenstr = s[0] #current length sub-string, taking the first letter of original string as value.
for i in range(1,l): #in range, the l is not counted.
if s[i] >= s[i-1]: #If current letter is greater or equal to previous letter,
curlenstr += s[i] #add the current letter to current length sub-string
else:
curlenstr = s[i] #otherwise, take the current letter as current length sub-string
if len(curlenstr) > len(maxlenstr): #if current cub-string's length is greater than max one,
maxlenstr = curlenstr; #take current one as max one.
print("Longest substring in alphabetical order is:", maxlenstr)

s = input("insert some string: ")
start = 0
end = 0
temp = ""
while end+1 <len(s):
while end+1 <len(s) and s[end+1] >= s[end]:
end += 1
if len(s[start:end+1]) > len(temp):
temp = s[start:end+1]
end +=1
start = end
print("longest ordered part is: "+temp)

I suppose this is problem set question for CS6.00.1x on EDX. Here is what I came up with.
s = raw_input("Enter the string: ")
longest_sub = ""
last_longest = ""
for i in range(len(s)):
if len(last_longest) > 0:
if last_longest[-1] <= s[i]:
last_longest += s[i]
else:
last_longest = s[i]
else:
last_longest = s[i]
if len(last_longest) > len(longest_sub):
longest_sub = last_longest
print(longest_sub)

I came up with this solution
def longest_sorted_string(s):
max_string = ''
for i in range(len(s)):
for j in range(i+1, len(s)+1):
string = s[i:j]
arr = list(string)
if sorted(string) == arr and len(max_string) < len(string):
max_string = string
return max_string

Assuming this is from Edx course:
till this question, we haven't taught anything about strings and their advanced operations in python
So, I would simply go through the looping and conditional statements
string ="" #taking a plain string to represent the then generated string
present ="" #the present/current longest string
for i in range(len(s)): #not len(s)-1 because that totally skips last value
j = i+1
if j>= len(s):
j=i #using s[i+1] simply throws an error of not having index
if s[i] <= s[j]: #comparing the now and next value
string += s[i] #concatinating string if above condition is satisied
elif len(string) != 0 and s[i] > s[j]: #don't want to lose the last value
string += s[i] #now since s[i] > s[j] #last one will be printed
if len(string) > len(present): #1 > 0 so from there we get to store many values
present = string #swapping to largest string
string = ""
if len(string) > len(present): #to swap from if statement
present = string
if present == s[len(s)-1]: #if no alphabet is in order then first one is to be the output
present = s[0]
print('Longest substring in alphabetical order is:' + present)

I agree with #Abhijit about the power of itertools.groupby() but I took a simpler approach to (ab)using it and avoided the boundary case problems:
from itertools import groupby
LENGTH, LETTERS = 0, 1
def longest_sorted(string):
longest_length, longest_letters = 0, []
key, previous_letter = 0, chr(0)
def keyfunc(letter):
nonlocal key, previous_letter
if letter < previous_letter:
key += 1
previous_letter = letter
return key
for _, group in groupby(string, keyfunc):
letters = list(group)
length = len(letters)
if length > longest_length:
longest_length, longest_letters = length, letters
return ''.join(longest_letters)
print(longest_sorted('hixwluvyhzzzdgd'))
print(longest_sorted('eseoojlsuai'))
print(longest_sorted('drurotsxjehlwfwgygygxz'))
print(longest_sorted('abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'))
OUTPUT
> python3 test.py
luvy
jlsu
ehlw
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
>

s = 'azcbobobegghakl'
i=1
subs=s[0]
subs2=s[0]
while(i<len(s)):
j=i
while(j<len(s)):
if(s[j]>=s[j-1]):
subs+=s[j]
j+=1
else:
subs=subs.replace(subs[:len(subs)],s[i])
break
if(len(subs)>len(subs2)):
subs2=subs2.replace(subs2[:len(subs2)], subs[:len(subs)])
subs=subs.replace(subs[:len(subs)],s[i])
i+=1
print("Longest substring in alphabetical order is:",subs2)

s = 'gkuencgybsbezzilbfg'
x = s.lower()
y = ''
z = [] #creating an empty listing which will get filled
for i in range(0,len(x)):
if i == len(x)-1:
y = y + str(x[i])
z.append(y)
break
a = x[i] <= x[i+1]
if a == True:
y = y + str(x[i])
else:
y = y + str(x[i])
z.append(y) # fill the list
y = ''
# search of 1st longest string
L = len(max(z,key=len)) # key=len takes length in consideration
for i in range(0,len(z)):
a = len(z[i])
if a == L:
print 'Longest substring in alphabetical order is:' + str(z[i])
break

first_seq=s[0]
break_seq=s[0]
current = s[0]
for i in range(0,len(s)-1):
if s[i]<=s[i+1]:
first_seq = first_seq + s[i+1]
if len(first_seq) > len(current):
current = first_seq
else:
first_seq = s[i+1]
break_seq = first_seq
print("Longest substring in alphabetical order is: ", current)