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Question

In the last function "def courses()" I have to return all the courses in a single list, but the courses are in a list already, so I return many lists inside the list. How can I fix this?

teachers.py

# The dictionary will be something like:
# {'Jason Seifer': ['Ruby Foundations', 'Ruby on Rails Forms', 'Technology Foundations'],
#  'Kenneth Love': ['Python Basics', 'Python Collections']}
#
# Often, it's a good idea to hold onto a max_count variable.
# Update it when you find a teacher with more classes than
# the current count. Better hold onto the teacher name somewhere
# too!
#
# Your code goes below here.

dict = {'Jason Seifer': ['Ruby Foundations', 'Ruby on Rails Forms', 'Technology Foundations'],  'Kenneth Love': ['Python Basics', 'Python Collections']}

def most_classes(aaa):

  count = 0
  the_teacher = ""

  for teacher in aaa:
    print(teacher)
    classes = len(aaa[teacher])
    if classes > count:
      count = classes
      the_teacher = teacher

  return the_teacher

def num_teachers(bbb):
  return len(bbb)

def stats(ccc):
  list = []
  for teacher in ccc:
    liste = []
    liste.insert(1, teacher)
    liste.insert(1, len(ccc[teacher]))
    list.insert(1,liste)
  return list

def courses(uuu):
  single_list = []
  for course in uuu:
    single_list.insert(1,uuu[course])
  return single_list


courses(dict)
most_classes(dict)
num_teachers(dict)
stats(dict)

Answer 1 · 2016-03-06T11:32:03Z

March 6, 2016 11:32am

The courses are held in the dictionary values. Using for course in uuu: will list the dictionary keys so "teacher" would be a clearer variable name. By using insert the entire list of courses for each teacher is added as a single element. Five teachers yields five inserted lists.

Instead of stepping through one list to add its elements to another list, you can use the extend() method:

def courses(uuu):
    single_list = []
    for teacher in uuu:
        single_list.extend(uuu[teacher])
    return single_list

Dictionaries can be iterated over using the .keys() (default), the .values(), or both using .items(). So this can be simplified by extracting the values directly in the for loop:

def courses(uuu):
    single_list = []
    for course_list in uuu.values():
        single_list.extend(course_list)
    return single_list

Answer 2 · 2016-03-06T01:34:13Z

March 6, 2016 1:34am

So your problem is with this line:

    single_list.insert(1,uuu[course])

As you mentioned, right now you are inserting a list uuu[course] into another list single_list, which gives you a list of lists.

Can you think of a way to iterate the list uuu[course] and add each element of it individually to single_list? My hint is that it is very similar to how you iterate the dictionary:

for course in uuu:

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