mortal echo
the rewritten fuction```py
def count_letter(fruit, letter):
count = 0
while fruit:
fruit.find(letter)
py
def count_letter(fruit, letter):
count = 0
for char in fruit:
if char == letter:
count += 1
return count
print(count_letter( 'apple', 'a'))``` orignal fuction
limber totemBOT
the rewritten fuction```py
def count_letter(fruit, letter):
count = 0
...
@mortal echo
Python help channel opened
mortal echo
heres the assignment
rewrite the count_letters function so that instead of traversing the
string, it repeatedly calls the butiln find method, with the optional third parameter to locate new occurrences of the letter being counted.
idle plinth
What have you tried so far?
idle plinth
That will find the first occurence of that letter
Notice that the problem statement talks about an optional extra parameter
Do you know what this one does?
mortal echo
im not really sure what the third paremeter is going to do
the assignments kinda confusing
idle plinth
You can always look at the documentation to see what arguments do https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.find
Here we see that the second argument defines at what index to start searching
mortal echo
i know what .find() does i just dont know what the 3rd parameter is going to do
idle plinth
They might want you to use it like this
str.find(fruit, letter, index)
instead of
fruit.find(letter, index)
these do the same ting
mortal echo
so i need to make a new variable called str
idle plinth
str is built in, it's the string class
mortal echo
oh my bad
so do i need fruit in the parameter of the while loop or does it need something else with it
idle plinth
find will return -1 if it doesn't find anything, run the while loop untill you have the -1
mortal echo
what would i put in the index?
idle plinth
The point from wher eyou want to start your search
mortal echo
oh ok\
while fruit:
str.find(fruit, letter, index)
return fruit
print(count_letter('apple', 'p', 0))``` its just printing appleHey @mortal echo!
idle plinth
You are not doing any counting
mortal echo
oh do i need count?
idle plinth
that is the purpose of the function
idle plinth
Yes, increment a counter every time you find something that's not -1
mortal echo
so if str.find(fruit, letter, index): counter count += 1?
idle plinth
That wouldn't work because all ints that are not 0 are True, so -1 is True as well
mortal echo
so i would need to make the counter += to -1? and then do count?
idle plinth
You'd need to check for the -1 in the if
I have to leave now.
One last thing I'll say is to keep track of the index that was found, that way you can use it in the next search.
sinful marsh
so if str.find(fruit, letter, index): counter count += 1?
Always be explicit in what you're testing. You suggested:
if find(......):
as though find was a true/false (aka Boolean) function which returned whether the thing was found. But when you read its docs, it returns the index of where the thing was found. And -1 when not found.
So be overt about it. If -1 is "not found", you want:
if find(......) != -1:
count += 1
i.e. that the return value is not equal to the "not found" return value.
latent birch
@mortal echo additionally, you want to keep track of the index to know where to start the search the next iteration through the loop
it might be easier to not call the str.find() method in the if condition or you will have to use the walrus operator and an additional set of parenthesis around the assignment if you are going to keep it within the if condition without having to call str.find() more than one time per iteration
@mortal echo still there?
mortal echo
!close
limber totemBOT
Python help channel closed with !close