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Python Python Basics (2015) Number Game App Squared

FHATUWANI Dondry MUVHANGO
FHATUWANI Dondry MUVHANGO
17,796 Points
Posted by FHATUWANI Dondry MUVHANGO
FHATUWANI Dondry MUVHANGO
17,796 Points

i am having trouble with the "try and except" question

what am i doing wrong?

squared.py 
# EXAMPLES
# squared(5) would return 25
# squared("2") would return 4
# squared("tim") would return "timtimtim"
def squared(num):
    try:
        num = int(num)
    except ValueError:
        return num*num

4 Answers

Jennifer Nordell
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STAFF
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Hi there! You have a couple of things going on with your code. First, you are trying to convert num to an integer (which is good), but then you assign it back into num and never return anything. Assuming that num can be converted to an integer, we want to return the number times itself.

However, in the except clause you do return the number times itself. However it's here that we want to return the value of the variable times the length of the value. We've already determined that it's not an integer as that's already failed. Take a look:

def squared(num):
    try:
        return int(num) ** 2
    except ValueError:
        return num * len(num)

Here we define a function named squared which takes a piece of information. We'd like that to be an integer and return the square of that integer. So we try and do just that. We try first to make the conversion to integer and the raise it to the second power. If that fails with a ValueError it means that what we got in was not an integer and cannot be converted to an integer. In this case, we want to take the value and multiply it by the length of that value.

Hope this helps! :sparkles:

jacinator
jacinator
11,936 Points
jacinator
jacinator
11,936 Points 
def squared(num):
    try:
        return int(num) ** 2  # Try to convert num to an int and return the square of num
    except ValueError:
        return num * len(num)  # Otherwise return num by the length of num
Burton King
Burton King
3,938 Points
Burton King
Burton King
3,938 Points

Another example of poorly written code challenges. Really frustrated with this pattern.