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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Dictionaries Teacher Stats

Jack Cummins
Jack Cummins
17,417 Points

Please help me!

I have no clue how to get this to work

Create a function named most_courses that takes our good ol' teacher dictionary. most_courses should return the name of the teacher with the most courses. You might need to hold onto some sort of max count variable.

teachers.py
# The dictionary will look something like:
# {'Andrew Chalkley': ['jQuery Basics', 'Node.js Basics'],
#  'Kenneth Love': ['Python Basics', 'Python Collections']}
#
# Each key will be a Teacher and the value will be a list of courses.
#
# Your code goes below here.
def num_teachers(test2):
    return len(test2)
def num_courses(teachers):
    total = 0
    for value in teachers.values():
        # for the number of courses within that value
        for course in value:
            total += 1
    return total
def courses(teachers):
    output = []
    for courses in teachers.values():
        output +=courses
def most_courses(dic):
    course_count = 0
    teacher_name = '' 

    for teacher, courses in dic.items():
        if len(courses) > course_count:
            teacher_name = teacher
    return teacher_name



    return output

2 Answers

andren
andren
28,558 Points

His code does indeed pass, but technically speaking it shouldn't. As it actually does not accomplish what the task is asking for.

He never assigns anything besides 0 to course_count so his comparison of len(courses) > course_count will always evaluate to True, assuming all teachers has at least 1 course.

It seems the challenge always passes you a dictionary where the last teacher has the largest course, so as long as you return the last teacher in the dictionary your code will pass, even if you don't do any size comparison at all.

This code for example passes just fine (I tested it multiple times):

def most_courses(dic):
    teacher_name = ''

    for teacher, courses in dic.items():
            teacher_name = teacher
    return teacher_name

Which seems like a bit of a code checker bug to me. The dictionary should be randomized so you actually can't pass without doing some size checking like the task is asking you to do.

Jennifer Nordell
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Hi andren ! Hope you don't mind, terribly, but I changed your comment to an answer. You're correct, and I didn't even spot it. But no, he never reassigns the value of count. So, it will always be the last teacher looked at. Thanks for helping out in the Community! :sparkles: Also, I'm submitting a bug report to Support.

Jennifer Nordell
seal-mask
STAFF
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Hi there, Jack Cummins! Would it comfort you to know that the function works just fine? Now, I'm not sure how this happened exactly but somehow you started that new function before the return statement of the courses function above it.

Your last line is return output, but that should be up in the courses function. When I move that up to its proper place, your code passes through step 4!

Hope this helps! :sparkles: