Author: chinbrow

WSQ09 – Files

--Originally published at Program

So for this assignment I would like to see you create a function that receives as parameter the name of a file (this would be a string value like data.txt) and your function counts the number of lines and the number of characters in the file which it returns as a single value (but with two values). You will want to look at how to use and return a tuple from a function and how to open and read text files line by line.

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Photo credit:

Files flickr photo by T a k shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license


WSQ10

--Originally published at Program

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In this assignment you will write a function to calculate the square root of a number using the Babylonian method.

Step 1: Make a guess.

Step 2: Divide your original number by your guess.

Step 3: Find the average of these numbers.

Step 4: Use this average as your next guess.

REPEAT THE PROCESS THREE TIMES.

What to Do

The function should receive a number and return floating point number. Obviously you should test your function, so create a main program that asks the user a value, calculates the square root and displays that.

Picture credit:

Babylonian Fresco flickr photo by Brimley shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license


Quiz_05_pt_03

--Originally published at Program

21. Write a function char_freq() that takes a string and builds a frequency listing of the characters contained in it. Represent the frequency listing as a Python dictionary. Try it with something like char_freq("abbabcbdbabdbdbabababcbcbab").


Quiz Week 08

--Originally published at Program

  • Write a function that calculates returns the “nth” Fibonacci number where we define a function over the Fibonacci numbers mapping the naturals (starting with zero) to the Fibonacci series. So fibonacci(0) returns 0, fibonacci(1) returns 1, fibonacci(2) returns 1 and so on. Note that we are using the modern definition where the sequence starts with zero. You should try to implement this with two solutions: one with a loop and one with recursion. Which do you think is “better”, which looks more “elegant”, which is more “efficient”?


WSQ08- Lychrel Numbers

--Originally published at Program

For this assignment, these were my instructions:

Your job is to create a program that asks the user for two pieces of data:

  • The lower bound of the sequence
  • The upper bound of the sequence
Then you check the values from the lower bound (inclusive) to the upper bound (inclusive) and make a report of them. During the analysis of each number, if a Lychrel number is found it should be reported immediately with something like “Found a Lychrel number: 196”
The report must show:
  • The range of numbers analysed (lower to upper bound)
  • The number of natural palindromes (no addition to inverse needed)
  • The number of non-Lycherels encountered (become palindromes)
  • The number of Lycherel number candidates (that did not converge to palindrome)

Since you will not be able to prove that a number is Lycherel (since you cannot computer forever to check), our definition for a Lycherel candidate will be if a number does not converge after 30 iterations of applying the addition to the inverse.


QUIZ_05_PT_2

--Originally published at Program

11. Define a function generate_n_chars() that takes an integer n and a character c and returns a string, n characters long, consisting only of c:s. For example, generate_n_chars(5,"x") should return the string "xxxxx". (Python is unusual in that you can actually write an expression 5 * "x" that will evaluate to "xxxxx". For the sake of the exercise you should ignore that the problem can be solved in this manner.)

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