Chapter 10

Miscellaneous Topics II

In this chapter we will look at variety of useful things to know.

10.1 str, int, float, and list

The str, int, float, and list functions are used to convert one data type into another.

str Quite often we will want to convert a number to a string to take advantage of string methods
to break the number apart. The built-in function str is used to convert things into strings. Here
are some examples:

Statement Result
str(37) '37'
str(3.14) '3.14'
str([1,2,3]) '[1,2,3]'

int and float The int function converts something into an integer. The float function con-
verts something into a floating point number. Here are some examples.

Statement Result
int('37') 37
float('3.14') 3.14
int(3.14) 3
To convert a float to an integer, the int function drops everything after the decimal point.

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list The list function takes something that can be converted into a list and makes into a list.
Here are two uses of it.
list(range(5)) [0,1,2,3,4]
list('abc') ['a','b','c']

Examples

Example 1 Here is an example that finds all the palindromic numbers between 1 and 10000. A
palindromic number is one that is the same backwards as forwards, like 1221 or 64546.

for i in range(1,10001):
s = str(i)
if s==s[::-1]:
print(s)

We use the str function here to turn the integer i into a string so we can use slices to reverse it.

Example 2 Here is an example that tells a person born on January 1, 1991 how old they are in
2010.

birthday = 'January 1, 1991 '

year = int(birthday[-4:])
print( 'You are ', 2010-year, 'years old. ')

The year is in the last four characters of birthday. We use int to convert those characters into an
integer so we can do math with the year.

Example 3 Write a program that takes a number num and adds its digits. For instance, given the
number 47, the program should return 11 (which is 4 + 7). Let us start with a 2-digit example.

digit = str(num)
answer = int(digit[0]) + int(digit[1])

The idea here is that we convert num to a string so that we can use indexing to get the two digits
separately. We then convert each back to an integer using the int function. Here is a version that
handles numbers with arbitrarily many digits:

digit = str(num)
answer = 0
for i in range(len(digits)):
answer = answer + int(digit[i])

We can do the above program in a single line using a list comprehension.

answer = sum([int(c) for c in str(num)])
10.2. BOOLEANS 89

Example 4 To break a decimal number, num, up into its integer and fractional parts, we can do the
following:
ipart = int(num)
dpart = num - int(num)

For example, if num is 12.345, then ipart is 12 and dpart is 12.345 − 12 = .345.

Example 5 If we want to check to see if a number is prime, we can do so by checking to see if it has
any divisors other than itself and 1. In Section 9.4 we saw code for this, and we had the following
for loop:
for i in range(2,num):

This checks for divisibility by the integers 2, 3, . . . , num-1. However, it turns out that you really
only have to check the integers from 2 to the square root of the number. For instance, to check if
p
111 is prime, you only need to check if it is divisible by the integers 2 through 10, as 111 ≈ 10.5.
We could then try the following for loop:
for i in range(2,num**.5):

However, this gives an error, because num**.5 might not be an integer, and the range function
needs integers. We can use int to correct this:
for i in range(2,int(num**.5)+1):

The +1 at the end is needed due to the range function not including the last value.

10.2 Booleans

Boolean variables in Python are variables that can take on two values, True and False. Here are
two examples of setting Boolean variables:
game_over = True
highlight_text = False

Booleans can help make your programs more readable. They are often used as flag variables or to
indicate options. Booleans are often used as conditions in if statements and while loops:
if game_over:
print( 'Bye! ')

Note the following equivalences:

if game_over: ⇔ if game_over==True:
while not game_over: ⇔ while game_over==False:

note Conditional expressions evaluate to booleans and you can even assign them to variables.
For instance, the following assigns True to x because 6==6 evaluates to True.
x = (6==6)
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We have seen booleans before. The isalpha string method returns True if every character of the
string is a letter and False otherwise.

10.3 Shortcuts

• Shortcut operators Operations like count=count+1 occur so often that there is a shorthand
for them. Here are a couple of examples:

Statement Shorthand
count=count+1 count+=1
total=total-5 total-=5
prod=prod*2 prod*=2
There are also shortcut operators /=, %=, //=, and **=.

• An assignment shortcut
Look at the code below.
a = 0
b = 0
c = 0
A nice shortcut is:
a = b = c = 0

• Another assignment shortcut

Say we have a list L with three elements in it, and we want to assign those elements to variable
names. We could do the following:
x = L[0]
y = L[1]
z = L[2]
Instead, we can do this:
x,y,z = L
Similarly, we can assign three variables at a time like below:
x,y,z = 1,2,3
And, as we have seen once before, we can swap variables using this kind of assignment.
x,y,z = y,z,x

• Shortcuts with conditions

Here are some handy shortcuts:

Statement Shortcut
if a==0 and b==0 and c==0: if a==b==c==0:
if 1<a and a<b and b<5: if 1<a<b<5:
10.4. SHORT-CIRCUITING 91

10.4 Short-circuiting

Say we are writing a program that searches a list of words for those whose fifth character is 'z'.
We might try the following:
for w in words:
if w[4]== 'z ':
print(w)

But with this, we will occasionally get a string index out of range error. The problem is that
some words in the list might be less than five characters long. The following if statement, however,
will work:
if len(w)>=5 and w[4]== 'z ':

It might seem like we would still get an error because we are still checking w[4], but there is no
error. The key to why this works is short-circuiting. Python starts by checking the first part of the
condition, len(w)>=5. If that condition turns out to be false, then the whole and condition is
guaranteed to be false, and so there is no point in even looking at the second condition. So Python
doesn’t bother with the second condition. You can rely on this behavior.

Short-circuiting also happens with or conditions. In this case, Python checks the first part of the or
and if it is true, then the whole or is guaranteed to be true, and so Python will not bother checking
the second part of the or.

10.5 Continuation

Sometimes you’ll write a long line of code that would be more readable if it were split across two
lines. To do this, use a backslash \ character at the end of the line to indicate that the statement
continues onto the next line. Here is an example:
if 'a ' in string or 'b ' in string or 'c ' in string \
or 'd ' in string or 'e ' in string:

Make sure there are no extra spaces after the backslash or you will get an error message.

If you are entering a list, dictionary, or the arguments of a function, the backslash can be left out:
L = [ 'Joe ', 'Bob ', 'Sue ', 'Jimmy ', 'Todd ', 'Frank ',
'Mike ', 'John ', 'Amy ', 'Edgar ', 'Sam ']

10.6 pass

The pass statement does nothing. Believe it or not, such a thing does have a few uses that we will
see later.
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10.7 String formatting

Suppose we are writing a program that calculates a 25% tip on a bill of $23.60. When we multiply,
we get 5.9, but we would like to display the result as $5.90, not $5.9. Here is how to do it:
a = 23.60 * .25
print( 'The tip is {:.2f} '.format(a))

This uses the format method of strings. Here is another example:

bill = 23.60
tip = 23.60*.25
print( 'Tip: ${:.2f}, Total: ${:.2f} '.format(tip, bill+tip))

The way the format method works is we put a pair of curly braces {} anywhere that we want a
formatted value. The arguments to the format function are the values we want formatted, with the
first argument matching up with the first set of braces, the second argument with the second set of
braces, etc. Inside each set of curly braces you can specify a formatting code to determine how the
corresponding argument will be formatted.

Formatting integers To format integers, the formatting code is {:d}. Putting a number in front
of the d allows us to right-justify integers. Here is an example:
print( '{:3d} '.format(2))
print( '{:3d} '.format(25))
print( '{:3d} '.format(138))

2
25
138

The number 3 in these examples says that the value is allotted three spots. The value is placed as
far right in those three spots as possible and the rest of the slots will be filled by spaces. This sort
of thing is useful for nicely formatting tables.

To center integers instead of right-justifying, use the ^ character, and to left-justify, use the < char-
acter.
print( '{:^5d} '.format(2))
print( '{:^5d} '.format(222))
print( '{:^5d} '.format(13834))

2
122
13834

Each of these allots five spaces for the integer and centers it within those five spaces.

Putting a comma into the formatting code will format the integer with commas. The example below
prints 1,000,000:
print( '{:,d} '.format(1000000))
10.8. NESTED LOOPS 93

Formatting floats To format a floating point number, the formatting code is {:f}. To only display
the number to two decimal places, use {:.2f}. The 2 can be changed to change the number of
decimal places.

You can right-justify floats. For example, {:8.2f} will allot eight spots for its value—one of those
is for the decimal point and two are for the part of the value after the decimal point. If the value
is 6.42, then only four spots are needed and the remaining spots are filled by spaces, causing the
value to be right-justified.

The ^ and < characters center and left-justify floats.

Formatting strings To format strings, the formatting code is {:s}. Here is an example that centers
some text:
print( '{:^10s} '.format( 'Hi '))
print( '{:^10s} '.format( 'there! '))

Hi
there!

To right-justify a string, use the > character:

print( '{:>6s} '.format( 'Hi '))
print( '{:>6s} '.format( 'There '))

Hi
there!

There is a whole lot more that can be done with formatting. See the Python documentation [1].

10.8 Nested loops

You can put loops inside of other loops. A loop inside of another loop is said to be nested, and you
can, more or less, nest loops as deeply as you want.

Example 1 Print a 10 × 10 multiplication table.

for i in range(1,11):
for j in range(1,11):
print( '{:3d} '.format(i*j), end= ' ')
print()

A multiplication table is a two-dimensional object. To work with it, we use two for loops, one for
the horizontal direction and one for the vertical direction. The print statement right justifies the
products to make them look nice. The end='' allows us to print several things on each row. When
we are done printing a row, we use print() to advance things to the next line.
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Example 2 A common math problem is to find the solutions to a system of equations. Sometimes
you want to find only the integer solutions, and this can be a little tricky mathematically. However,
we can write a program that does a brute force search for solutions. Here we find all the integer
solutions (x, y) to the system 2x + 3 y = 4, x − y = 7, where x and y are both between -50 and 50.

for x in range(-50,51):
for y in range(-50,51):
if 2*x+3*y==4 and x-y==7:
print(x,y)

Example 3 A Pythagorean triple is a triple of numbers (x, y, z) such that x 2 + y 2 = z 2 . For instance
(3, 4, 5) is a Pythagorean triple because 32 + 42 = 52 . Pythagorean triples correspond to triangles
whose sides are all whole numbers (like a 3-4-5-triangle). Here is a program that finds all the
Pythagorean triples (x, y, z) where x , y , and z are positive and less than 100.

for x in range(1,100):
for y in range(1,100):
for z in range(1,100):
if x**2+y**2==z**2:
print(x,y,z)

If you run the program, you’ll notice that there are redundant solutions. For instance, (3, 4, 5) and
(4, 3, 5) are both listed. To get rid of these redundancies, change the second loop so that it runs from
x to 100. This way, when x is 4, for instance, the first value for y that will be searched is 4, rather
than 1, and so we won’t get the redundant (4, 3, 5). Also change the third loop so that it runs from
y to 100.

As you look through the solutions, you might also notice that there are many solutions that are
multiples of others, like (6, 8, 10), and (9, 12, 15) are multiples of (3, 4, 5). The following program
finds only primitive Pythagorean triples, those that aren’t multiples of another triple. The way it
does this is every time a new triple is found, it checks to make sure that x, y, and z are not all
divisible by the same number.

for x in range(1,100):
for y in range(x,100):
for z in range(y,100):
if x**2+y**2==z**2:
for i in range(2,x):
if x%i==0 and y%i==0 and z%i==0:
break
else:
print((x,y,z), end= ' ')

Example 4 In Section 15.7, we will write a game to play tic-tac-toe. The board is a 3 × 3 grid, and
we will use nested for loops to create it.
10.9. EXERCISES 95

Example 5 Your computer screen is grid of pixels. To draw images to the screen, we often use
nested for loops—one loop for the horizontal direction, and one for the vertical direction. See
Sections 18.2 and 22.6 for examples.

Example 6 List comprehensions can contain nested for loops. The example below creates the
string Pyyttthhhhooooonnnnnn:
''.join([c*i for c in 'Python ' for i in range(1,7)])

10.9 Exercises

1. Write a program that uses list and range to create the list [3,6, 9, . . . , 99].

2. Write a program that asks the user for a weight in kilograms. The program should convert
the weight to kilograms, formatting the result to one decimal place.

3. Write a program that asks the user to enter a word. Rearrange all the letters of the word
in alphabetical order and print out the resulting word. For example, abracadabra should
become aaaaabbcdrr.

4. Write a program that takes a list of ten prices and ten products, applies an 11% discount to
each of the prices displays the output like below, right-justified and nicely formatted.

Apples $ 2.45
Oranges $ 18.02
...
Pears $120.03

5. Use the following two lists and the format method to create a list of card names in the format
card value of suit name (for example, 'Two of Clubs').
suits = [ 'Hearts ', 'Diamonds ', 'Clubs ', 'Spades ']
values = [ 'One ', 'Two ', 'Three ', 'Four ', 'Five ', 'Six ', 'Seven ',
'Eight ', 'Nine ', 'Ten ', 'Jack ', 'Queen ', 'King ', 'Ace ']

6. Write a program that uses a boolean flag variable in determining whether two lists have any
items in common.

7. Write a program that creates the list [1,11,111,1111,...,111...1], where the entries
have an ever increasing number of ones, with the last entry having 100 ones.

8. Write a program to find all numbers between 1 and 1000 that are divisible by 7 and end in a
6.

9. Write a program to determine how many of the numbers between 1 and 10000 contain the
digit 3.
96 CHAPTER 10. MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS II

10. Adding certain numbers to their reversals sometimes produces a palindromic number. For
instance, 241 + 142 = 383. Sometimes, we have to repeat the process. For instance, 84 + 48 =
132 and 132 + 231 = 363. Write a program that finds both two-digit numbers for which this
process must be repeated more than 20 times to obtain a palindromic number.

11. Write a program that finds all pairs of six-digit palindromic numbers that are less than 20
apart. One such pair is 199991 and 200002.

12. The number 1961 reads the same upside-down as right-side up. Print out all the numbers
between 1 and 100000 that read the same upside-down as right-side up.

13. The number 99 has the property that if we multiply its digits together and then add the sum
of its digits to that, we get back to 99. That is, (9 × 9) + (9 + 9) = 99. Write a program to find
all of the numbers less than 10000 with this property. (There are only nine of them.)

14. Write a program to find the smallest positive integer that satisfies the following property: If
you take the leftmost digit and move it all the way to the right, the number thus obtained is
exactly 3.5 times larger than the original number. For instance, if we start with 2958 and move
the 2 all the way to the right, we get 9582, which is roughly 3.2 times the original number.

15. Write a program to determine how many zeroes 1000! ends with.

16. Write a program that converts a decimal height in feet into feet and inches. For instance, an
input of 4.75 feet should become 4 feet, 9 inches.

17. Write a program that repeatedly asks the user to enter a height in the format feet’inches" (like
5'11" or 6'3". The user indicates they are done entering heights by entering done. The
program should return a count of how many 4-footers, 5-footers, 6-footers, and 7-footers
were entered.

18. Write a program that repeatedly asks the user to enter a football score in the format winning
score-losing score (like 27-13 or 21-3). The user indicates they are done entering scores by
entering done. The program should then output the highest score and the lowest score out of
all the scores entered.

19. Write a program that repeatedly asks the user to enter a birthday in the format month/day
(like 12/25 or 2/14). The user indicates they are done entering birthdays by entering done.
The program should return a count of how many of those birthdays are in February and how
many are on the 25th of some month (any month).

20. Write a program that asks the user to enter a date in the format mm/dd/yy and converts it
to a more verbose format. For example, 02/04/77 should get converted into February 4,
1977.

21. Write a program that asks the user to enter a fraction in the form of a string like '1/2' or
'8/24'. The program should reduce the fraction to lowest terms and print out the result.

22. Write a program to find all four solutions to the following problem: If a starfruit is worth $5,
a mango is worth $3, and three oranges together cost $1, how many starfruits, mangoes, and
oranges, totaling 100, can be bought for $100?
10.9. EXERCISES 97

23. The currency of a strange country has coins worth 7 cents and 11 cents. Write a program to
determine the largest purchase price that cannot be paid using these two coins.

24. Here is an old puzzle you can solve using brute force by using a computer program to check
all the possibilities: In the calculation 43 + 57 = 207, every digit is precisely one away from
its true value. What is the correct calculation?

25. Write a program that finds all integer solutions to Pell’s equation x 2 − 2 y 2 = 1, where x and
y are between 1 and 100.

26. Write a program that asks the user for a number and prints out all the ways to write the
number as difference of two perfect squares, x 2 − y 2 , where x and y are both between 1 and
1000. Writing a number as a difference of two squares leads to clever techniques for factoring
large numbers.

27. Write a program that simulates all possible rolls of four dice and for each simulated roll, finds
the sums of pairs of dice. For instance, if the roll is 5 1 2 4, the sums are 6, 8, 9, 3 ,5, and 6.
For each of the possible sums from 2 to 12, find the total number of simulated rolls in which
the sum appears and what percentage of the simulated rolls had those sums appear. Output
the totals and percentages, nicely formatted, with the percentages formatted to one decimal
place. To check your work, you should find that the sum 2 comes up in 171 rolls, which is
13.2% of the rolls.

28. In a magic square, each row, each column, and both diagonals add up to the same number.
A partially filled magic square is shown below. Write a program to check through all the
possibilities to fill in the magic square.

5 _ _
_ 6 2
3 8 _

29. The following is useful as part of a program to play Minesweeper. Suppose you have a 5 × 5
list that consists of zeros and M’s. Write a program that creates a new 5 × 5 list that has M’s in
the same place, but the zeroes are replaced by counts of how many M’s are in adjacent cells
(adjacent either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). An example is shown below. [Hint:
short-circuiting may be helpful for avoiding index-out-of-range errors.]

0 M 0 M 0 1 M 3 M 1
0 0 M 0 0 1 2 M 2 1
0 0 0 0 0 2 3 2 1 0
M M 0 0 0 M M 2 1 1
0 0 0 M 0 2 2 2 M 1

30. Pascal’s triangle is shown below. On the outside are 1’s and each other number is the sum of
the two numbers directly above it. Write a program to generate Pascal’s triangle. Allow the
user to specify the number of rows. Be sure that it is nicely formatted, like below.

1
1 1
98 CHAPTER 10. MISCELLANEOUS TOPICS II

1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
1 5 10 10 5 1

31. Given two dates entered as strings in the form mm/dd/yyyy where the years are between
1901 and 2099, determine how many days apart they are. Here is a bit of information that
may be useful: Leap years between 1901 and 2099 occur exactly every four years, starting at
1904. February has 28 days, 29 during a leap year. November, April, June, and September
each have 30 days. The other months have 31 days.

32. Monte Carlo simulations can be used to estimate all sorts of things, including probabilities of
coin flip and dice events. As an example, to estimate the probability of rolling a pair of sixes
with two dice, we could use random integers to simulate the dice and run the simulation
thousands of times, counting what percentage of the time a pair of sixes comes up.

(a) Estimate the probability of rolling a Yahtzee in a single roll of five dice. That is estimate
the probability that when rolling five dice they all come out to be the same number.
(b) Estimate the probability of rolling a large straight in a single roll of five dice. A large
straight is a roll where the dice come out 1-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-6 in any order.
(c) Estimate the average longest run of heads or tails when flipping a coin 200 times.
(d) Estimate the average number of coin flips it takes before five heads in a row come up.
(e) Estimate the average number of coin flips it takes before the string s comes up, where s
is a string of heads and tails, like HHTTH.