For loop for finding index in string - python

I'm wondering why my function does not call the index of the character in the string. I used a for loop for this, and for some reason it's just listing all of the possible indices of the string. I made a specific if statement, but I don't get why it's not following the instructions.
def where_is(char,string):
c=0
for char in string:
if char==(string[c]):
print (c)
c+=1
else:
print ("")
where_is('p','apple')

Your loop is overwriting your parameter char. As soon as you enter your loop, it is overwritten with a character from the string, which you then compare to itself. Rename either your parameter or your loop variable. Also, your counter increment c+=1 should also be outside of your if. You want to increase the index whether or not you find a match, otherwise your results are going to be off.
And just as a matter of style, you don't really need that else block, the print call will just give you extra newlines you probably don't want.

Firstly, the index you used is not being increased in the else part and secondly, I generally prefer a while loop to a for loop when it comes to iterating through strings. Making slight modifications to your code, have a look at this :
def where_is(char,string):
i=0
while i<len(string):
if char==(string[i]):
print (i)
else:
print ("")
i+=1
where_is('p','apple')
Input : where_is('p','apple')
Output: 1 2
Check it out here

The problem is that the given code iterated over everything stored in the string and as it matched everytime the value of 'c' increased and got printed.
I think your code should be:
def where_is(char, string):
for i in range(len(string)):
if char == (string[i]):
print(i)
where_is('p', 'apple')
This prints the index of all the 'p's in 'apple'.

As mentioned in the comments, you don't increment correctly in your for loop. You want to loop through the word, incrementing each time and outputting the index when the letter is found:
def where_is(char, word):
current_index = 0
while current_index < len(word):
if char == word[current_index]:
print (current_index)
current_index += 1
where_is('p', 'apple')
Returning:
1
2
Alternatively, by using enumerate and a list comprehension, you could reduce the whole thing down to:
def where_is(char, word):
print [index for index, letter in enumerate(word) if letter == char]
where_is('p', 'apple')
which will print:
[1,2]
You then also have the option of return-ing the list you create, for further processing.

Related

how can i use multiple returned indices in a for loop to update a variable?

My question is: is there any way i can somehow use all the returned capital letter indices and replace them ALL with an underscore? I wished to take the returned values from the uppercase_finder function and insert an underscore in front of those capitalized letters. However, when I run the program, I only get the first capital letter of input with an underscore. Can I somehow iterate all the returned uppercase indices into the part where I insert underscores?
def main():
first_input = input("input here: ")
uppercase_indice = uppercase_finder(first_input)
new_case = first_input[:uppercase_indice] + "_" + first_input[uppercase_indice:]
new_case = new_case.lower()
print(new_case)
def uppercase_finder(x):
for i in range(len(x)):
if x[i].isupper():
return i
main()
Okay so based on the assumption that the overall goal is to print out the string inputted all lowercase and an underscore appended to each letter that was uppercase.
You could iterate through each letter in the string without focusing on the indices at all. Something like:
def main():
first_input = input("input here: ")
updated_input = ""
for letter in first_input:
if(letter.isupper()):
updated_input += "_" + letter.lower()
else:
updated_input += letter
print(updated_input)
Output:
input here: HeLLo
_he_l_lo
Generally though if you want to stick with the uppercase_finder function, the return statement in the loop stops the loop the moment any letter that is uppercase is found. In order to get all of the indices of each letter that is uppercase you would need something like this:
def uppercase_finder(x):
list_of_indices = []
for i in range(len(x)):
if x[i].isupper():
list_of_indices.append(i)
return list_of_indices
Then in the main function you can iterate across the list:
for index in uppercase_indice:
# Make string manipulations for each index
It's obviously an assignment problem so I'm not going to spoon-feed the answer. But I can point out what's the problem in your uppercase_finder.
The problem is that it is returning the index as soon as it find the first upper case. What you can do is
def uppercase_finder(x):
uppercase_indices = []
for i in range(len(x)):
if x[i].isupper():
# Append the index to the list uppercase_indices
return uppercase_indices
There's some problem with your uppercase_finder function, 'return' denotes the end of a function, whenever a return is met, the function will immediately stop and exit with an returned value. For ur case, it seems u wanna return all the indices where there are a capital letter, u may use yield instead of return thus making the function a generator.
def uppercase_finder(x):
for i in range(len(x)):
if x[i].isupper():
yield i
use the output of a generator via a loop:
for capital_pos in uppercase_finder(first_input):
do_sth

printing a single value of a list with enumerate function

I have the following statement:
for i, char in enumerate(list(range(100))):
now i just want to print the value, where char is equal to 50.
I have tried the following idea, but did not understand why it is incorrect:
for i, char in enumerate(list(range(100))):
char == 50
print(i)
The solution is that I have to put an "if" statement, i already understood the logic behind it but also want to ask, why my approach is not valid.
Thanks for helping in advance.
You're almost there, you just have to use the if condition like so:
for i, char in enumerate(list(range(100))):
if char == 50: #<--- add if here
print(i) #<--- inside the if-condition
Also, I see there is no need to use enumerate or list.

Write a function that takes a string as an argument and displays the letters, one per line using loops in python

I'm learning to program and I'm using "how to think like an computer scientist" the above question is an exercise
This is the program without a function
fruit = "banana"
index = 0
while index < len(fruit):
letter = fruit[index]
print(letter)
index = index + 1
I want to put that into a function like
def tranversal(fruit):
index = 0
while index < len(fruit):
letter = fruit[index]
return letter
index += 1
print(tranversal("apple"))
However this is only printing the first letter of "apple" and if I use print statement instead of return I will get None.
I'm very confused and need help !!
Seems like you didn't understand the purpose of the return statement inside a function. You might want to read this answer first to make things clear.
Once you understand the difference between print() and return, you should define what your function needs to do. Does it need to return the answer or is printing it on the screen enough?
Assuming the latter, given that strings are iterable, a more pythonic way to do it would be:
def transversal(fruit):
for letter in fruit:
print(letter)
Note that since the function is not explicitly returning a value if you try something like:
foo = transversal("banana")
the variable foo will hold the value None.
If you want your function to return the answer and not print it, you could append each letter to an empty result string, with separators for each new line and after you are done with that, simply return result. It could be a good exercise, so you should give it a try :).
A simple solution:
print(*'banana', sep='\n')
Output:
b
a
n
a
n
a
With help of the star operator * you can split a list or a string into parts and and pass them as multiple arguments to function. So the expression print(*'abc') is equivalent to print('a', 'b', 'c').
If you use print in the function, then you dont need to use print when calling the function.
def tranversal(fruit):
index = 0
while index < len(fruit):
letter = fruit[index]
print(letter)
index += 1
tranversal("apple")
If you use a return statement inside of the while loop, then you will immediately leave the function (and return the first letter), and the while loop will not be executed for higher indices.
You can use this code snippet
def printAllChar(s):
for i in s:
print(i,end='\n')
//calling here...
printAllChar("ProgRank")
//output here...
P
r
o
g
R
a
n
k
For the purpose of understanding i wanted to do that exercise with a function, while loop and get a return value.
I've gotten help and i appreciate everyone, here is my code:
def `tranversal`(fruit):
result = ""
length = int(len(fruit))
index = 0
while index < length:
result += fruit[index]
index += 1
if index == length:
return "\n".join(result)
print(tranversal("string"))
You need to execute the statement using the function outside the function. Just shift return tranversal("apple") outside the function transversal like this:
def transversal(fruit):
index = 0
letters = ''
while index < len(fruit):
letters += fruit[index] + '\n'
index += 1
return letters
print(transversal("apple"))
Thank you #MykolaZotko for pointing out an error in the code that caused it to only print the first letter.

A "string index out if range" Python error

I´ve searched for other "string index out of range" cases, but they were not useful for me, so I wanted to search for help here.
The program has to do this: "Write a function kth_word(s, k) that given a string s and an integer k≥ 1 returns the kth word in string s. If s has less than k words it returns the empty string. We assume all characters of s are letters and spaces. Warning: do not use the split string method."
Here is my code:
def kth_word(s, k):
new =""
word_count = 0
for i in range(0, len(s)):
if s[i] == " " and s[i+1] != " ":
word_count+=1
#try to find how many characters to print until the space
if word_count == k-1:
while i!= " " and i<=len(s): #if it is changed to i<len(s), the output is strange and wrong
new+=s[i]
i=i+1
print(new) #check how new is doing, normally works good
return new
print(kth_word('Alea iacta est', 2))
(I tried my best to implement the code in a right way, but i do not know how)
And depending on the place where you live return new it gives or an error or just an empty answer
You iterate from 0 to len(s)-1 in your first for loop, but you're addressing i+1 which, on the last iteration, is len(s).
s[len(s)] is an IndexError -- it is out of bounds.
Additionally your while loop is off-by-one.
while i!= " " and i<=len(s):
# do something referencing s[i]
Your first condition makes no sense (i is a number, how could it be " "?) and your second introduces the same off-by-one error as above, where i is maximally len(s) and s[len(s)] is an error.
Your logic is a bit off here, too, since you're wrapping this inside the for loop which is already referencing i. This appears to be a takewhile loop, but isn't really doing that.
Warning: do not use the split string method.
So groupby / islice from itertools should work:
from itertools import groupby, islice
def kth_word(s, k):
g = (j for i, j in groupby(s, key=lambda x: x==' ') if not i)
return ''.join(next(islice(g, k-1, k), ''))
words = 'Alea iacta est'
res = kth_word(words, 2) # 'est'
We handle StopIteration errors by setting the optional parameter in next to ''.
You're not allowed to use str.split. If you could, the answer would just be:
def kth_word(s, k):
return s.split()[k]
But if you could write a function that does the same thing str.split does, you could call that instead. And that would certainly show that you understand everything the assignment was testing for—how to loop over strings, and do character-by-character operations, and so on.
You can write a version with only the features of Python usually taught in the first week:
def split(s):
words = []
current = ''
for ch in s:
if ch.isspace():
if current:
words.append(current)
current = ''
else:
current += ch
if current:
words.append(current)
return words
If you know additional Python features, you can improve it in a few ways:
Build current as a list instead of a str and ''.join it.
Change those append calls to yield so it splits the string lazily (even better than str.split).
Use str.find or str.index or re.search to find the next space instead of searching character by character.
Abstract out the space-finding part into a general-purpose generator—or, once you realize what you want, find that function in itertools.
Add all of the features we're missing from str.split, like the ability to pass a custom delimiter instead of breaking on any whitespace.
But I think even the basic version—assuming you understand it and can explain how it works—ought to be enough to get an A on the assignment.
And, more importantly, you're practicing the best way to solve problems: reduce them to simpler problems. split is actually easier to write than kth_word, but once you write split, kth_word becomes trivial.
You actually have at least five problems here, and you need to fix all of them.
First, as pointed out by Adam Smith, this is wrong:
for i in range(0, len(s)):
if s[i] == " " and s[i+1] != " ":
This loops with i over all the values up to but not including len(s), which is good, but then, if s[i] is a space, it tries to access s[i+1]. So, if your string ended with a space, you would get an IndexError here.
Second, as ggorlen pointed out in a comment, this is wrong:
while i!= " " and i<=len(s):
new+=s[i[]
When i == len(s), you're going to try to access s[i], which will be an IndexError. In fact, this is the IndexError you're seeing in your example.
You seem to realize that's a problem, but refuse to fix it, based on this comment:
#if it is changed to i<len(s), the output is strange and wrong
Yes, the output is strange and wrong, but that's because fixing this bug means that, instead of an IndexError, you hit the other bugs in your code. It's not causing those bugs.
Next, you need to return new right after doing the inner loop, rather than after the outer loop. Otherwise, you add all of the remaining words rather than just the first one, and you add them over and over, once per character, instead of just adding them once.
You may have been expecting that doing that i=i+1 would affect the loop variable and skip over the rest of the word, but (a) it won't; the next time through the for it just reassigns i to the next value, and (b) that wouldn't help anyway, because you're only advancing i to the next space, not to the end of the string.
Also, you're counting words at the space, but then you're iterating from that space until the next one. Which means (except for the first word) you're going to include that space as part of the word. So, you need to do an i += 1 before the while loop.
Although it would probably be a lot more readable to not try to reuse the same variable i, and also to use for instead of while.
Also, your inner loop should be checking s[i] != " ", not i!=" ". Obviously the index, being a number, will never equal a space character.
Without the previous fix, this would mean you output iacta est
with an extra space before it—but with the previous fix, it means you output nothing instead of iacta.
Once you fix all of these problems, your code works:
def kth_word(s, k):
word_count = 0
for i in range(0, len(s) - 1):
if s[i] == " " and s[i+1] != " ":
word_count+=1
#try to find how many characters to print until the space
if word_count == k-1:
new =""
j = i+1
while j < len(s) and s[j] != " ":
new+=s[j]
j = j+1
print(new) #check how new is doing, normally works good
return new
Well, you still have a problem with the first word, but I'll leave it to you to find and fix that one.
Your use of the variable 'i' in both the for loop and the while loop was causing problems. using a new variable, 'n', for the while loop and changing the condition to n < len(s) fixes the problem. Also, some other parts of your code required changing because either they were pointless or not compatible with more than 2 words. Here is the fully changed code. It is explained further down:
def kth_word(s, k):
new = ""
word_count = 0
n = 0
for i in range(0, len(s) - 1):
if s[i] == " " and s[i + 1] != " ":
word_count += 1
#try to find how many characters to print until the space
if word_count < k:
while n < len(s): #if it is changed to i<len(s), the output is strange and wrong
new+=s[n]
n += 1
print(new) #check how new is doing, normally works good
return new
print(kth_word('Alea iacta est', 2))
Explanation:
As said in Adam Smith's answer, 'i' is a number and will never be equal to ' '. That part of the code was removed because it is always true.
I have changed i = i + 1 to i += 1. It won't make much difference here, but this will help you later when you use longer variable names. It can also be used to append text to strings.
I have also declared 'n' for later use and changed for i in range(0, len(s)): to for i in range(0, len(s) - 1): so that the for loop can't go out of range either.
if word_count == k-1: was changed to if word_count < k: for compatibility for more words, because the former code only went to the while loop when it was up to the second-last word.
And finally, spaces were added for better readability (This will also help you later).

Print the first chars of a list (beginner)

so far this is my code
def firstChars( s ):
for word in s:
print (s[0][0])
this is what it prints:
>>> s='hello','world'
>>> firstChars(s)
h
h
how do i alter this code so that it prints out 'h' and 'w'?
s[0] will always be the first element in the sequence passed to the function. In order to use the specific word being examined in the for loop just above, use word within the loop instead.
word represents each element of the tuple/iterable. For the tuple ("Hello", "World"), word will be equal to "Hello" then "World". To get the first letter of each, subscript the word: word[0].
Note that this isn't the safest approach, as it will crash on an empty string (because "" doesn't have a 0-th element). I might define a "firstLetter" function that deals with the cases of an empty string if you can't guarantee that the string won't be empty.
To elaborate on JL's answer, what you wrote runs "fine" because Strings and tuples are both iterable (like a list).
When you wrote s[0][0], s[0] evaluated to "Hello", then you're left with "Hello"[0], which evaluates to 'H'. It output twice, once for each loop iteration because you based the loop on the tuple, which had 2 elements.
Alternative pythonic way
s='hello','world'
print('\r\n'.join(item[0] for item in s))
h
w
with the for word in s loop, word will first point to the first element of s, then to the second etc. If the explanation doesn't make sense to you, just run this:
def each_word(s):
for word in s:
print s
s = ("hello", "wolrd")
each_word(s)
Now the first char of a string word is word[0], and this should be enough to solve your problem.
for word in s:
print (s[0][0])
in this code fragment word becomes each element of s in turn -- s[0] ('hello') then s[1] ('world'). Whereas s[0][0] directly accesses the first element of the first element of s ('h'). you are looking to access the first element of each element in turn. So:
for word in s:
print (word[0])
will do what you are trying to accomplish.
This works. Now, one bit of warning, and it goes back to another comment about naming. In Python, it can be very hard to distinguish a string from a list or a tuple. They all iterate, they all have lengths and indices.
Be careful in how you name things, because there is no compiler to catch goofups.
def firstChars( s ):
#iterate through list/tuple passed in
for word in s:
#now, pick the first character
print (word[0])
Try this:
def firstChars( s ):
for word in s:
print (word[0])
In the function firstChars, you correctly loop over the items in s, but note that inside the for block, you should use word as that is the variable that is assigned the current item in s.
Also note that when you have multiple indices lined up as ins[0][0], each one "digs deeper" into the previous item. So, s[0] refers to the first item in s (the string 'hello'), the following [0] refers to the first char of that item ('h').

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