I don't understand what they're looking for

Question

I know my code will work in the way they asked, but I'm not sure how to go about this problem using loops, or I don't know what answer they're looking for.

functions.py

num_list = list([1, 2, 3])
add_list = sum(num_list)
summarize = "The sum of " + str(num_list) + " is " + str(add_list)

Answer 1 · 2015-09-11T21:58:33Z

September 11, 2015 9:58pm

I'm going to let Kevin break this down if I did it wrong, but this passed for me after retrying.

def add_list(list):
  total = 0
  for number in list:
    total += number
  return total

def summarize(list2):
  total2 = 0
  for number in list2:
    total2 += number
  list2string = ''.join(str(list2))
  return "The sum of {} is {}".format(list2string, total2)

So the real issue here is that your method is very rigid. Kevin is trying to teach you how to make functions so that when a user calls them and chooses a random set of numbers, it will still calculate the same way. Your solution works, but only with those sets of numbers and can't be reused.

add_list: so...what I do is make a new function called add_list. It takes a list as the argument. It starts out with a "counter" of 0. then it uses a "for" loop to go through each number in the list and add it to the total. It then returns the total.

summarize: This one is similar. I set a total counter again. I loop through each number in list 2. Add them to the total. Now that the function is done using list2 variable...I convert it into a string using the .join and str function. Finally, I return my newly formatted list2string and total2 counter.

Answer 2 · 2015-09-11T21:52:26Z

September 11, 2015 9:52pm

Hi Tristan

The Challenge asks you to create a function named add_list. This function should take a list as an argument ie [1,2,3] and return the total of [1,2,3] in this case 6. You will need a variable to hold the total value, you will also need a for loop. this is how you write a for loop

list = ["hello","Tristan"]
for word in list:
    print(word)

# output would be
hello
Tristan

since we have 2 values in our list the loop goes round list twice printing word each time.

Answer 3 · 2015-09-11T21:53:49Z

September 11, 2015 9:53pm

First of all, they're asking you to create functions not variables. So your first function you would create would be:

def add_list(num_list):
  #since it says to use a for loop we'll do it that way
  total = 0
  for num in num_list:
    total += num
  return total

and then you'd have another function called summarize:

def summarize(num_list):
  # do some work  in here using the function add_list to format the string
  return some_formatted_string

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Tristan bradford

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I don't understand what they're looking for

Tristan bradford

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3 Answers

Zachary Hudson

Zachary Hudson

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Andreas cormack

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