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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Lists Disemvowel

eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points
Posted by eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points

Still stuck on disemvowel

... still stuck on disemvowel. After Stephen's assistance earlier it looked back through earlier exercises and think the for loop is more appropriate. The error that gets thrown up says that a string is being returned but it is not removing the vowels. Any comments without giving all away would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

disemvowel.py 
def disemvowel(word):
    letters = word.upper()
    vowels = ["A", "E", "I", "O", "U"]
    for letter in letters:
        if letter == vowels:
            letters.remove(vowels)
    return word

4 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points

Glad I could help — Happy coding!

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points

Your code is working on "letters" but returning "word" (the unchanged original argument).

Also, it seems to be trying to call a "remove" method on a string (string's don't have that). Perhaps you were thinking of "replace"? Or maybe you intended to convert the word into a list and then back later?

Either "remove" (for lists) or "replace" (for strings) can only work with one item at a time.

And be careful not to convert the case of letters that are not being removed!

eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points
eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points

Thanks Steven. More shuffling and getting an error which suggests getting closer.

def disemvowel(word):
    word = list(word)
    vowels = ["a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "A", "E", "I", "O", "U"]
    for letter in vowels:
        if letter in word:
            word.remove(letter)
        word = ''.join(letter)
    return(word)

It seems to be throwing back the last letter in the vowels list...

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points

From this point, I see three issues:

  • there could be more than one of each letter, you might need "while" instead of "if"
  • it's not "letter" you want to join, but "word"
  • don't rejoin the word until after the loop(s) are done
eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points
eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points

Thanks Steven - some progress but still not getting the vowels to remove. I'm assuming I'm not understanding how the while loop works over the vowels list. Any comments?

def disemvowel(word):
    word = list(word)
    vowels = ["a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "A", "E", "I", "O", "U"]
    while vowels in word:
        if vowels == word:
            word.remove(vowels)
    word = ''.join(word)
    return(word)

Thanks as always

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,644 Points

My previous hints were based on leaving everything else (like the "for" loop) as it was.

eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points
eestsaid
eestsaid
1,311 Points

That worked Steven - thanks so much for the patience and direction ... learned a bunch.

def disemvowel(word):
    word = list(word)
    vowels = ["a", "e", "i", "o", "u", "A", "E", "I", "O", "U"]
    for letter in vowels:
        while letter in word:
            word.remove(letter)
    word = ''.join(word)
    return(word)