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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Slices sillyCase

Posted by julianferdman
julianferdman
2,574 Points

I'm getting this awesome error.

Any ideas Mods?

It passes after a couple of submits.

sillycase.py 
def sillycase(item):
    item_list = list(item)
    new_list = []
    for i in item_list:
        if item_list.index(i) < len(item_list)-1:
            i.lower()
            new_list.append(i)
        else:
            i.upper()
            new_list.append(i)
    item = ''.join(new_list)
    return item
A X
A X
12,842 Points

I personally like this error. After cycling a few times I got this long "answer":
rkbwJhGgItyTmWSPxLECzDQeaoVMBpqilHvcjsUXYnKF;;;rkbwjhggitytmwspxleczdQEAOVMBPQILHVCJSUXYNKF

:D

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

Hi Julian,

It looks like the challenge tester is running a different test each time and your code happens to pass one of the tests but it's the wrong logic.

I think the error messages are missing a few words so that they make more sense.

The string that comes before the 3 semicolons is probably what your code is producing and what comes after the semicolons is what it's expecting to get. You'll notice that the first half is all lowercase and the 2nd half is all uppercase.

From nekilof's example

rkbwJhGgItyTmWSPxLECzDQeaoVMBpqilHvcjsUXYnKF # This is what it's getting from your code
rkbwjhggitytmwspxleczdQEAOVMBPQILHVCJSUXYNKF # This is the expected result

As Steven mentioned, slicing will make this much easier. And you need some code to figure out the middle index.

You don't have to convert to a list and you won't need any loops.

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

Bummer! aYnSNivXVCOzjdJcgWBGqflhksZDpy;;;aynsnivxvcozjdjCGWBGQFLHKSZDPY

Now that is indeed "awesome"! You might want to share that awesomeness in a bug report using the Support page.

But it's a fluke that it passes if you keep submitting, as the logic really doesn't perform the intended task. Since you've passed, you can just move on, but if you really want to construct a valid solution to the challenge, I would recommend re-thinking the approach a bit.

In particular, you can make a much more compact function by making use of slices, as introduced in the previous video. Try creating a slice-based solution and see if you can pass the challenge on the first try.

julianferdman
julianferdman
2,574 Points
julianferdman
julianferdman
2,574 Points

I see, thanks everyone for the responses. This definitely makes much more sense using slicing. I thought I'd share this though cause the output was so wacky.