Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Lists Disemvowel

Posted by Idris Abdulwahab
Idris Abdulwahab
Courses Plus Student 2,961 Points

removing items from a list

PLEASE, if you are responding to this, do not just give me hints. I got that before and it wasn't really helping due to communication gap perhaps. I need you to help with hints and also adjust the code. That will help me see through the problem and learn better.

Quiz challenge: OK, I need you to finish writing a function for me. The function disemvowel takes a single word as a parameter and then returns that word at the end. I need you to make it so, inside of the function, all of the vowels ("a", "e", "i", "o", and "u") are removed from the word. Solve this however you want, it's totally up to you! Oh, be sure to look for both uppercase and lowercase vowels!

disemvowel.py 
def disemvowel(word):
    base = list(word)
    vowels = "aeiou"
    small = vowels.lower()
    big = vowels.upper()
    for char in base:
        if char == small or char == big:
            base.remove(char)
    word = "".join(base)            
    return word

3 Answers

andren
andren
28,558 Points
andren
andren
28,558 Points

There are two issues with your code:

  1. You check if char is equal to small or big instead of checking if char is contained in small or big.

  2. You are trying to remove items from the base list while you are looping over base. Removing items from a list while it is being looped over causes issues since the items end up moving around while the loop is running, which causes some items to be skipped over.

If you change your == comparison to in comparisons and use the word variable as the source of your loop instead of the base variable like this:

def disemvowel(word):
    base = list(word)
    vowels = "aeiou"
    small = vowels.lower()
    big = vowels.upper()
    for char in word: # Loop over `word` since that will not change during the loop.
        if char in small or char in big: # check if `char` is `in` `small` or `big`.
            base.remove(char)
    word = "".join(base)            
    return word

Then your code will work.

Idris Abdulwahab
Idris Abdulwahab
Courses Plus Student 2,961 Points

Thank you so much for your help and hints. I learnt from it and I do appreciate it.

Idris Abdulwahab
PLUS
Idris Abdulwahab
Courses Plus Student 2,961 Points
Idris Abdulwahab
Idris Abdulwahab
Courses Plus Student 2,961 Points

Hi Abubakar,

The .join() method is used a list to combine the elements in that list into a string.

For example:

boy = "abcd"
girl = list(boy)
wow = "".join(girl)

Details:

boy is a string

girl converts your string into a list like this: ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

the .join() is used to combine elements in the list (which is girl) into a string. Now you should have your initial string back which is 'abcd'. Note that before you use the join() method, you have to first create an empty string which is the "" so that whatever elements being joined together to form a string will be put into that empty string. There has to be a bag before you can put a content into it.

I hope this helps.

Cheers.

Abubakar Gataev
Abubakar Gataev
2,226 Points
Abubakar Gataev
Abubakar Gataev
2,226 Points

what is the " ".join(base)please answer