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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Slices sillyCase

Posted by Tiago Ramos
Tiago Ramos
2,380 Points

Am I finding the index correctly?

Hi friends,

I thought about getting the middle index, so I can slice the first and second half of the string, upper and lowercase them, concatenate them, and finally return the string.

Where am I going wrong? Thanks

sillycase.py 
def sillycase(string):

    # find the middle index of the string
    mid_index = string.length() // 2

    # slice the first and second half of the string
    first_half = string.slice[mid_index::-1]
    second_half = string.slice[mid_index::]

    # upper and lower case
    lower_case = first_half.lower()
    upper_case = second_half.upper()

    # concatenate 
    string_case = lower_case + upper_case

    return string_case

2 Answers

Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points

Hi again,

Also, your slicing isn't quite right.

You've got mid_index now. So use string[:mid_index] for the first half and string[mid_index:] for the last half. You don't need to call the slice method (I don't know if it exists!) - the square brackets do that for you.

Amending your code gives you:

def sillycase(string):

    # find the middle index of the string
    mid_index = len(string) // 2

    # slice the first and second half of the string
    first_half = string[:mid_index]
    second_half = string[mid_index:]

    # upper and lower case
    lower_case = first_half.lower()
    upper_case = second_half.upper()

    # concatenate 
    string_case = lower_case + upper_case

    return string_case

You can probably tidy it up a bit by removing the first_half, second_half, lower_case and upper_case variables and just returning the two slices with the right casing:

def sillycase(string)
    mid_index = len(string) // 2
    return string[:mid_index].lower() + string[mid_index:].upper()

But that maybe lacks clarity; there's a middle ground, perhaps.

Steve.

Tiago Ramos
Tiago Ramos
2,380 Points

thank you very much Steve :) it worked perfectly!

Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points

No problem! I hope you understood why it worked too. :+1:

Tiago Ramos
Tiago Ramos
2,380 Points

yeah I understood well ;)

Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points

:+1:

Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points
Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points

Hi Tiago,

It might be the way you're trying to get the length of the string.

Try passing the string as a parameter into the len() method, like this:

mid_index = len(string) // 2

Let me know how you get on.

Steve.

Tiago Ramos
Tiago Ramos
2,380 Points

hi steve thanks for the tip, but it still isn't working, do you think I need to round the mid_index? or is another block of the code that's wrong? (maybe the slices?)

Steve Hunter
Steve Hunter
57,712 Points

Yes, the slices - I added a second answer below 15 minutes ago. :wink: