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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Lists Disemvowel

Posted by mateoniksic3
mateoniksic3
2,255 Points

What is wrong with this code?

What is wrong with my code?

disemvowel.py 
def disemvowel(word):
  char_list = list(word)
  char_remove = set(('a','e','i','o','u'))
  for char in char_list:
    if char.lower() in char_remove:
      char_list.remove(char)
  word = ''.join(char_list)
  return word

2 Answers

Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points
Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points

The issue is that your are looping through a list and modifying that list while in the loop, so it is messing up the loop when you remove a character. It will skip the next character after a remove because you modified which character is at the next index entry value.

Probably the easiest fix is to just loop over word (of course there are zillions of other options)...

Please let me know if you need additional explanation.

mateoniksic3
mateoniksic3
2,255 Points

I'm coming from C programming language and this logic in python is killing me.

I tried this now and it still does not work...

def disemvowel(word): char_list = list(word) char_remove = ['a','e','i','o','u','A','E','I','O','U']

for i in (len(char_list)-1): if char_list[i] in char_remove: del char_list[i]

word = ''.join(char_list) return word

print(disemvowel('oARV'))

Could you post a solution maybe?

Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points
Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points

Sure thing...

Pretty soon you'll start to appreciate python - maybe???

You're over complicating things and your recent solution is still looping over char_list and messing up the index.

Here's your original code with 1 small change to fix:

def disemvowel(word):
    char_list = list(word) 
    char_remove = set(('a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u'))
    for char in word: #  instead of char_list loop word, still an iterable
        if char.lower() in char_remove:
            char_list.remove(char) #  now you are modifying char_list and the word loop is happy
    word = ''.join(char_list)
    return word

Hopefully, this makes sense

varlevi
varlevi
8,113 Points
varlevi
varlevi
8,113 Points

Just wondering: In your code, Dave, what does the keyword set do? Thanks in advance!

Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points
Dave StSomeWhere
Dave StSomeWhere
19,870 Points

Hi Allison, That code is the OP's, not mine, not sure why they decided to use a set(). Also, I can't remember which course covered sets, but basically a set is similar to a list or dict and is a an un-ordered and unique collection. It also has some spiffy methods to do Venn diagram type functions like intersection - something like this set tutorial might provide some interesting info. When I did this challenge, I just used a list. Hope that answers your question.

mateoniksic3
mateoniksic3
2,255 Points
mateoniksic3
mateoniksic3
2,255 Points

Yes I've got it now, it works.

Thanks a lot Dave.