[pvpkiller]

I am trying to write a program, where when a user enters a word, it writes it backwards. Please help me figure it out.

word = input("Enter a word: ")
count = len(word)
print("\nThere are", count, "words.")
    print(word[count - 1])
    print(word[count - 2])
    print(word[count - 3])
    print(word[count - 4])
    print(word[count - 5])
    print(word[count - 6])
    print(word[count - 7])

This is probably the wrong way to do it, so please teach me the right way. The problem I have with this one is, how do I tell the computer to stop when it hits the last letter? Thank you for your help.

This post has been edited by pvpkiller: 02 July 2011 - 05:02 AM

[Brewer]

The best way to do this is to use extended slice syntax.

word = raw_input("Enter a word: ")
print word, "in reverse is", word[::-1]

If you're not terribly new to python you'll know about string slicing. [:3] takes everything from a string, starting at the beginning and going up to, but not including, the 3rd character. In Python you can also do extended slicing. [::-1] is of the form [begin:end:step]. Since no parameters are given for the beginning or the end, Python knows that you want to entire string. The -1 tells us that we want to count in reverse.

Make sense?

[pvpkiller]

Yes, it makes sense. Thank you very much. Oh and i am new to python, only been studying it for 3 days, but i did learn slicing. Thank you for ur help

[kiwi_steve]

Slicing is extremely powerful, and definitely the right way to do it... but just to follow your code example and do it your way, you need a loop to get each letter rather than manually code each line... so you'd do it something like:

word = raw_input("Enter a word: ")
count = len(word)
print "\nThere are", count, "letters."
for i in range(count):
    print word[count - i - 1],

The count - i - 1 part is because, for example, if you have a word which is 5 letters long then count = 5... but indexing of each position starts at zero, meaning the last letter is at position 4 - hence the -1:

word: hello
index:01234
len(word) = 5

Hope that makes sense - welcome to Python, its a very cool language (although no-one who programs in any other language will ever admit that )

This post has been edited by kiwi_steve: 02 July 2011 - 05:58 AM

[atraub]

Wow, I thought I'd be first to get to this one because it was posted so early in the morning. Brewer's technique is identical to mine. To expand on the technique a little.

string[start:stop:step] most are easy but step can be a little tricky. If you were to do

>>> x = "Hello World!"
>>> x[::2]
'HloWrd'

Since I'm stepping by two's, I'm doing every other letter. -1 means to go backwards, so you'd be starting at the beginning, going to the end, but stepping backwards. I love the step attribute, and have even used it on occasion in production code.

This post has been edited by atraub: 02 July 2011 - 06:32 AM

[Nallo]

I shouldn't do this, but I feel like nit-picking today. The TopicOpener obviously used python 3.x syntax. But The answers given by kiwi_steve and Brewer were in python 2.x syntax .
Luckily the TopicOpener didnt't get confused by that .

This post has been edited by atraub: 02 July 2011 - 09:27 AM

[atraub]

That is a tad bit nit picky... but I suppose it was worth pointing out. Good catch.

[Brewer]

atraub, on 02 July 2011 - 10:53 AM, said:

Wow, I thought I'd be first to get to this one because it was posted so early in the morning

I have an email sent to me when a new thread is opened in the Python forum. I just happened to be online when the op posted their question.

[atraub]

I get the same email... I am the forum leader after all

[kiwi_steve]

Nallo, on 03 July 2011 - 05:25 AM, said:

I shouldn't do this, but I feel like nit-picking today. The TopicOpener obviously used python 3.x syntax. But The answers given by kiwi_steve and Brewer were in python 2.x syntax .
Luckily the TopicOpener didnt't get confused by that .

Yep. I use 2.7 and not 3, so I stuck with that syntax in the print statement to make sure it would run for me...

Brewer, on 03 July 2011 - 06:42 AM, said:

atraub, on 02 July 2011 - 10:53 AM, said:

Wow, I thought I'd be first to get to this one because it was posted so early in the morning

I have an email sent to me when a new thread is opened in the Python forum. I just happened to be online when the op posted their question.

And I live in New Zealand... which is GMT+12, so I get everything 15-odd hours before you

[pvpkiller]

Wow, when I joined this forum, I never thought this many people would be helpful. Thank you so much for helping me out, I appreciate it. Also, even though I use python 3.x, i can still figure out the 2.x code as well (the book that I follow showed me how to do that ). Thanks for all the help.

[kiwi_steve]

pvpkiller, on 04 July 2011 - 01:02 AM, said:

Thanks for all the help.

You're very welcome

[Brewer]

pvpkiller, on 03 July 2011 - 09:32 AM, said:

Also, even though I use python 3.x, i can still figure out the 2.x code as well (the book that I follow showed me how to do that ). Thanks for all the help.

Just out of curiosity, what book would that be? I own a copy of Mark Lutz's Learning Python and that covers both 2.6 (I think) and 3.0.

[pvpkiller]

Brewer, on 03 July 2011 - 10:10 AM, said:

pvpkiller, on 03 July 2011 - 09:32 AM, said:

Also, even though I use python 3.x, i can still figure out the 2.x code as well (the book that I follow showed me how to do that ). Thanks for all the help.

Just out of curiosity, what book would that be? I own a copy of Mark Lutz's Learning Python and that covers both 2.6 (I think) and 3.0.

I use "Python 3 for absolute beginners" by Tim Hall and J-P Stacey and "Python programming for absolute beginner(3rd edition) by Michael Dawson.