Structuring State

Self-Review Questions

Self-review 4.1 What are the values of the variables a, b, c and d after the following
statements have been executed?
a=1
b=2
c=a+b
d=a+c

a will be 1, b will be 2, c 3 and d 4.

Self-review 4.2 How many elements are in the dictionary someData after the fol-
lowing code has been executed?
someData = { }
someData[’cheese’] = ’dairy’
someData[’Cheese’] = ’dairy’

Self-review 4.3 Given the following assignment:

items = ( ( 3 , 2 ) , ( 5 , 7 ) , ( 1 , 9 ) , 0 , ( 1 ) )

without writing a Python program or using the Python interpreter,

answer the following:

1. What value is returned by len ( items )?

2. What is the value of items[1]?
3. print items[2][0] prints 1 but print items[3][0] causes a TypeError.
Why is this given that items has more than 3 elements?
4. For items[x][y], what values of x and y cause the expression to
evaluating to 9?
5. It might at first appear that the type of items[0] and the type
of items[4] are the same.
(a) What are the types of these two expressions?
(b) Why is the type of items[4] not tuple?
(c) If it was intended that items[4] be a tuple, how should the
assignment be altered, without adding any new values?
28 Structuring State

Self-review 4.4 What is the output of the following code?

a=1
def f ( ) :
a = 10
print a

The code will print 1 to the console.

Self-review 4.5 Explain why the code in the previous question did not display 10.
Because the scope of the line a = 10 is the method f, which is never called.

Self-review 4.6 Referring to the coffee/cola vending machine state transition dia-
gram (page ??), what happens if the consumer puts three tokens
into the machine without pressing any buttons?

Self-review 4.7 Which of the following are types mutable and which are immutable:
int, list, float, tuple, str.
All the types listed are mutable except for tuple and str.

Self-review 4.8 What happens when the following statement is executed as the
first statement of a program?
x , y , z = 1 , 2 , x ** 3

There is an error – the exception NameError is raised. All the expressions on the
right-hand side are evaluated before any assignments are done so x is being used
before it is assigned.

Self-review 4.9 For each of the following lines, using substitution, hand-evaluate
the following sequence:
x,y,z=1,2,3
z,y,x=x,z,y
x,y,z=(z+1),(x-2),(y*3)
y , z , x = ( y / x ) , ( x * y ) , ( z ** x )

Self-review 4.10 Draw the state space of the following devices:

1. An MP3 or Ogg Vorbis player.
2. A microwave oven.

Self-review 4.11 Draw a state transition diagram for a two-bit binary counter. A
binary counter is a digital circuit that has a clock input and an out-
put that gives the number of clock cycles that have been counted.
A two-bit binary counter only has two output connections, which
can have the value of either 1 or 0. This means that a two-bit
counter can count from 0 to 22 − 1 and back to 0 again.
 Programming Exercises 29

Self-review 4.12 Draw a state transition diagram for a PIN (Personal Identification
Number) recognizer. If the user enters ‘1’ followed by ‘8’ followed
by ‘5’ followed by ‘0’ followed by ‘enter’, the machine should en-
ter a state called ‘accept’. If the user enters any other combination
of numbers, followed by ‘enter’ the machine should enter a state
called ‘reject’. Is this program a lexer?

Self-review 4.13 The implementation of cipherCharacter on page ?? has a bug in it

even though this bug may never appear in normal use. What is
the bug and how can it be fixed?
The problem is that there is no wrap around, and the chr function requires its
parameter to be in range(256).

Self-review 4.14 What are the types of variables a and b in the following code:
a=(1)
b=(1,)

Self-review 4.15 What is the types and value of y after executing the following
code:
x=[1,2,3,4,5]
y=x[:]

Both x and y are lists. They have the same value, which is [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Programming Exercises

Exercise 4.1 Examine the following code:

a = 10
b = 20
print "Before swapping a=%d, b=%d" % ( a , b )
#Swap values
a=b
b=a
print "After swapping a=%d, b=%d" % ( a , b )

1. Try running this small program. What are the values of a and b
after the swap?
2. Why is the result not a having the value 20 and b having the
value 10 as appears to be the intention from the use of the word
swap in the code?
3. Modify the code so that the final result is a having the value 20
and b having the value 1 using simultaneous assignment to swap
the values.
4. Many languages, such as C, C++, Java, do not have simulta-
neous assignment. Modify the program so that it successfully
swaps the two values without using simultaneous assignment.
30 Structuring State

1. Both a and b have the value 20.

2. Because the line a = b sets a to 20, leaving b as it was.
3. a, b = b, a
4. a = 10
b = 20
print "Before swapping a=%d, b=%d" % (a, b)
# Swap values
temp = a
a=b
b = temp
print "After swapping a=%d, b=%d" % (a, b)

Exercise 4.2 This question is based on a function for stepping through a represen-
tation of a pack of cards. The exact nature of the cards isn’t important.
We use a list to represent pack and in our example we use numbers
between 1 and 5 as cards. They could equally be numbers and suits as
tuples, strings of character names, etc. Here’s the function:
# A hand of cards
cards = [ 1 , 5 , 3 , 4 , 2 , 3 , 2 ]

def nextCard ( cards ) :

next = cards[0]
newHand = cards[1:] + [ cards[0] ]
return next , newHand

• What is the type of values returned by this function?

• Describe in words what the function does.
• It would be a simple matter for this function to alter the input list
so that the first element becomes the last. This would simplify
the return value, which is currently two items. Why might this
be considered a poorer solution that the function as it is now?
• Write a loop that calls this function repeatedly, printing out the
card from the top of the deck each time.
• Using the given function and your answer to the previous ques-
tion as a starting point, write a program that checks a deck of
cards for consecutive identical pairs (a 2 followed by a 2, for
example). If a pair is found, a message should be displayed.
• What happens if the input list is empty? Correct the function so
that it returns ( None , [ ] ) when an empty list is used as input.

Exercise 4.3 Write a program to create a frequency table using a dictionary from
a set of input values. The program should repeatedly asks the user
for an input. The input could be anything at all. As each input is
gathered, see if it exists as a key in the dictionary. If it does not exist,
associate the input as a key with the number 1. If it does exist, add
one to the value already associated with it and add it back to the
dictionary. If the value associated with this key is now greater than
or equal to 3, print a message that looks something like “Dear user,
you have entered the word ‘discombobulated’ 3 times!”
 Programming Exercises 31

Frequency tables such as this are often used for storing histogram
data. We will look at actually drawing histograms later (Chapter ??).
Frequency tables are also used in some sorting algorithms.

Hint: You will need an infinite loop and to use the raw_input function.

Hint: someDict.has_key ( ’a key’) returns a Boolean value indicating whether

the dictionary someDict has already got a value associated with
the key ’a key’.

def frequency ( ) :
d={}
while True :
user = raw_input ( ’Please enter the next value or QUIT to finish: ’ )
if user == ’QUIT’ : return
elif d.has_key ( user ) :
d[user] += 1
if d[user] > 2 : print ’Dear user, you have entered the value’, user, d[user], ’times!’
else :
d[user] = 1

Exercise 4.4 Write the Python program that manages the state of the two-bit binary
counter from Self-review 4.11

Exercise 4.5 The lexer in Section ?? can only recognize non-negative integers. Im-
prove the program by adding code to deal with negative numbers.

def getIntegerValue ( buffer ) :

isNegative = False
if buffer[0] == ’-’ :
isNegative = True
buffer = buffer[1:]
for i in range ( len ( buffer ) ) :
if not buffer[i].isdigit ( ) : break
if isNegative:
return -1 * int ( buffer [:(i+1)] )
else:
return int ( buffer [:(i+1)] )

Exercise 4.6 Create a program for storing a week’s worth of rainfall data. Use a list
to store each day’s value, entered sequentially by the user. When an
entire week has been input, display the days with the minimum and
maximum rainfall.

import math

def rainfall ( ) :
days = [ ’Mon’ , ’Tue’ , ’Wed’ , ’Thu’ , ’Fri’ , ’Sat’ , ’Sun’ ]
rain = [ ]
for i in range ( 7 ) :
r = input ( ’Please enter the rainfall for ’ + days[i] + ’: ’ )
rain.append ( r )
minimum = rain[0]
32 Structuring State

maximum = rain[0]
for i in rain :
if i < minimum : minimum = i
if i > maximum : maximum = i
print ’Min rainfall for this week:’ , minimum
print ’Max rainfall for this week:’ , maximum
for i in range ( len ( rain ) ) :
print ’Rainfall for’ , days[i] , ’=’ , rain[i]

if __name__ == ’__main__’ :
rainfall ( )

Exercise 4.7 Extend your answer to the previous exercise so that it also displays the
mean and standard deviation of the values. The mean is the sum of all
the values divided by the number of values. The standard deviation
is the square root of the sum of the squares of the difference between
each value and the mean, divided by the number of items.

import math

def rainfall ( ) :
days = [ ’Mon’ , ’Tue’ , ’Wed’ , ’Thu’ , ’Fri’ , ’Sat’ , ’Sun’ ]
rain = [ ]
for i in range ( 7 ) :
r = input ( ’Please enter the rainfall for ’ + days[i] + ’: ’ )
rain.append ( r )
# Minimum and Maximum
minimum = rain[0]
maximum = rain[0]
for i in rain :
if i < minimum : minimum = i
if i > maximum : maximum = i
mean = sum ( rain ) / len ( rain )
sd = math.sqrt ( sum ( [ ( x - mean ) ** 2 for x in rain ] ) / ( len ( rain ) - 1 ) )
# Print everything to the console
print ’Min rainfall for this week:’ , minimum
print ’Max rainfall for this week:’ , maximum
print ’Mean rainfall for this week:’ , mean
print ’Standard deviation rainfall for this week:’ , sd
for i in range ( len ( rain ) ) :
print ’Rainfall for’ , days[i] , ’=’ , rain[i]

if __name__ == ’__main__’ :
rainfall ( )

Exercise 4.8 Calculating statistics such as maximum, minimum, mean and stan-
dard deviation is a common task. Now that you have a program to
do it, package the code up into a function that can be used again in
future.

Exercise 4.9 A “wobbly” number is one in which the digits alternate between being
higher and lower than the preceding one. Here are some wobbly
numbers: 19284756242, 90909, 0909. Using what you have learned
 Challenges 33

about writing lexers, write a function that accepts a list of digits to

be checked for wobbliness. If the sequence of digits is wobbly, the
function should return True, otherwise False.

def isWobbly ( num ) :

if num == ’’ : return False
elif not ( len ( num ) > 2 ) : return False
if not ( num[0].isdigit ( ) or num[1].isdigit ( ) ) : return False
isLower = int ( num[0] ) < int ( num[1] )
curr = int ( num[1] )
for i in num[2:] :
if not i.isdigit ( ) : return False
d = int ( i )
if ( curr < d ) == isLower : return False
elif curr == d : return False
isLower = curr < d
curr = d
return True

Exercise 4.10 The following code was written before the programmer had drunk
their morning coffee, i.e. they were not properly awake at the time.
It is supposed to add 3% to all the values in the variable salary_scale.
However, there is one very important bug in this code. Find and fix
the bug to make sure everyone gets their 3% pay rise!
salaryScale = ( 20000 , 21500 , 23000 , 24500 , 26000 , 27500 , 29000 )
for i in range ( len ( salaryScale ) ) :
salaryScale[i] += salaryScale[i] * 0.03
print salaryScale

Tuples are immutable so the code generates a TypeError when executed.

Exercise 4.11 Starting with the list:

[ 43 , 1 , 2 , 99 , 54 , 78 , 22 , 6 ]

write a function to sort the list – i.e. your function should return the
list:
[ 1 , 2 , 6 , 22 , 43 , 54 , 78 , 99 ]

You can use any method you like to sort the list. Good answers to
this problem will work on any list, not just the one we’ve given here.

Challenges

Challenge 4.1 Imagine a fictional land where monetary units aren’t based on dec-
imal orders. In this land, we have 3 basic units of currency:

• The Blink. The smallest unit of currency.

• The Hoojim. Worth 12 Blinks.
• The Bung. Worth 20 Hooja (plural of Hoojim) or 240 Blinks.
34 Structuring State

1. Write a function called deBung that accepts an integer repre-

senting a number of Bungs and displays the number of Hooja
and Blink it is worth. For example, calling the function like
this:
deBung ( 4 )

Will produce the following output:

4 Bungs is worth 80 Hoojim or 960 Blinks.
2. Write a function called enBlinkHoojaBung that takes a number
of Blinks and outputs its equivalent in Blink, Hooja and Bung,
using the smallest number of coins. Coins in our imaginary
land are made of a very heavy metal, so this is important. If
the function is called with the value 506, the output should be:
506 Blinks is worth 2 Bung, 1 Hoojim and 6 Blinks.
You will need the remainder operator (%).
3. Rewrite enBlinkHoojaBung so that it returns a tuple of Blinks,
Hooja and Bung values instead of writing to the screen. The
last example would return ( 2 , 1 , 6 ).

Challenge 4.2 Referring back to Exercise 4.2, write a program that uses two hands
of cards (two lists) to play a simple game of “snap”. No cards change
hands, but when two identical cards are played, a message should
be printed.

Challenge 4.3 Write a lexer to recognize floating point numbers.

Hint: If your input is the following string: ‘12345.9876’ what do you
have to do to each character in the string to generate your
float? How are the numbers before the decimal point different
to the numbers after the decimal point? Make sure you have
an algorithm that works correctly on paper before you start
coding and draw a state transition diagram for the scanning
part of your lexer.