Confused on what the code is doing

Question

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!
Python
def disemvowel(word):
    word_as_list = list(word)
    vowels = list('aeiouAEIOU')
    for vowel in vowels:
        while vowel in word_as_list:
            word_as_list.remove(vowel)
    return ''.join(word_as_list)

Can somebody explain to me how this works? I'm a bit confused

Steven Parker · Accepted Answer

I'm not sure your friend is doing you much of a favor by supplying you with "spoiler" answers without explaining them.  They might work, but they may also contain unnecessary, redundant, or "bad practice" code that could lead to programming habits that you would do better to avoid.   Plus it robs you of the experience of solving the issue yourself, which I think can be an important part of the learning process.
For an example, you are correct in what applying the "list" function to the string of vowels does, but it is entirely unnecessary because a string is iterable, and can be used directly to control a loop.
The rest of the code converts the incoming string into a list so the loop can remove elements from it and then re-assembles it into a string afterwards.  But this is just one possible approach to solving the task.  You should ask the person who wrote it for their own explanation, and also why they chose this particular strategy.

Stivan Radev · Answer

@Steven Parker (https://teamtreehouse.com/stevenparker), actually a friend of mine showed me this code.
So I'm confused on these parts:
Why is 'word' wrapped in list()
Python
word_as_list = list(word)

is this a short method ...
Python
vowels = list('aeiouAEIOU')

...to this
Python
vowels = ['a','e','i','o','u','A','E','I','O','U']

What is happening here?
Python
while vowel in word_as_list:
            word_as_list.remove(vowel)
    return ''.join(word_as_list)

Thanks!

Kayla Johhnson · Answer

Your issue starts at your For loop. You are comparing the vowels in the vowel list you created when you actually want to be looping through the letters of the 'word' that will be passed through the function. Try: For letter in word or For letter in wordaslist.copy()
Your original code might work with some tweaking but I wouldn't know how - that's out of my league.

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Stivan Radev

Stivan Radev

Confused on what the code is doing

Steven Parker

Steven Parker

3 Answers

Steven Parker

Steven Parker

Stivan Radev

Stivan Radev

Kayla Johhnson

Kayla Johhnson

Steven Parker

Steven Parker

Kayla Johhnson

Kayla Johhnson

Stivan Radev

Stivan Radev