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Python Python Collections (Retired) Slices sillyCase

Posted by jasonswartzbaugh
jasonswartzbaugh
3,661 Points

Sillycase Code Validation

I just completed the code for the Python course "sillycase challenge" The code I wrote is:

def sillycase(getString):
        firstHalf = getString[0:len(getString) / 2]
        secondHalf = getString[len(getString) / 2:]
        return firstHalf.lower() + secondHalf.upper()

When I click the "Check Work" button, I receive the following message:

Bummer! slice indices must be integers or None or have an index method

However, when I run this code in Python, the function gets created, and it works correctly.

Here's what I ran directly in the Python interpreter:

>>> def sillycase(getString):
...   firstHalf = getString[0:len(getString) / 2]
...   secondHalf = getString[len(getString) / 2:]
...   return firstHalf.lower() + secondHalf.upper()
...
>>> sillycase("treehouse")
'treeHOUSE'
>>>

What gives?

1 Answer

Jason Anello
PLUS
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points
Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

Hi Jason,

What version of python are you running in your interpreter? I suspect it is a 2.x version if that code is running successfully.

In python 3 the behavior of the division operator has changed and it now yields a float. So the example here would be 9 / 2 = 4.5 and this would not be a valid index to slice on. In python 2 the result would be 4 and that may be what you are running when it works.

The comments in the code mention that you should use round(). That way the index you calculate can be rounded to the correct integer.

So you can do something like this round(len(getString) / 2)

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

There is a floor division operator in python, //, which will yield an integer result. It passes the result of the division through the "floor" function. So 9 // 2 = 4

However, you can't pass the challenge with this because it does not always produce the same result as round()