''' Cesar Cipher '''
def encrypt(word, shift):
word = word.lower()
for i in word:
r = chr(ord(i)+shift)
if r > "z":
r = chr(ord(i) - 26 + shift)
word = word.replace(i, r)
return word
if __name__ == "__main__": print encrypt("programming", 3)
This gives me wrong answers on shifts higher than 1 and words longer then 2. I can't figure out why. Any help please?
Thilo explains the problem exactly. Let's step through it:
''' Cesar Cipher '''
def encrypt(word, shift):
word = word.lower()
for i in word:
r = chr(ord(i)+shift)
if r > "z":
r = chr(ord(i) - 26 + shift)
word = word.replace(i, r)
return word
Try encrypt('abc', 1) and see what happens:
First loop:
i = 'a'
r = chr(ord('a')+1) = 'b'
word = 'abc'.replace('a', 'b') = 'bbc'
Second loop:
i = 'b'
r = chr(ord('b')+1) = 'c'
word = 'bbc'.replace('b', 'c') = 'ccc'
Third loop:
i = 'c'
r = chr(ord('c')+1) = 'd'
word = 'ccc'.replace('c', 'd') = 'ddd'
You don't want to replace every instance of i with r, just this one. How would you do this? Well, if you keep track of the index, you can just replace at that index. The built-in enumerate function lets you get each index and each corresponding value at the same time.
for index, ch in enumerate(word):
r = chr(ord(ch)+shift)
if r > "z":
r = chr(ord(ch) - 26 + shift)
word = new_word_replacing_one_char(index, r)
Now you just have to write that new_word_replacing_one_char function, which is pretty easy if you know slicing. (If you haven't learned slicing yet, you may want to convert the string into a list of characters, so you can just say word[index] = r, and then convert back into a string at the end.)
I don't know how Python likes replacing characters in the word while you are iterating over it, but one thing that seems to be a problem for sure is repeated letters, because replace will replace all occurrences of the letter, not just the one you are currently looking at, so you will end up shifting those repeated letters more than once (as you hit them again in a later iteration).
Come to think of it, this will also happen with non-repeated letters. For example, shifting ABC by 1 will become -> BBC -> CCC -> DDD in your three iterations.
I had this assignment as well. The hint is you have to keep track of where the values wrap, and use that to your advantage. I also recommend using the upper function call so everything is the same case, reduces the number of checks to do.
In Python, strings are immutable - that is they cannot be changed. Lists, however, can be. So to use your algorithm, use a list instead:
''' Cesar Cipher '''
def encrypt(word, shift):
word = word.lower()
# Convert the word to a list
word = list(word)
# Iterate over the word by index
for i in xrange(len(word)):
# Get the character at i
c = word[i]
# Apply shift algorithm
r = chr(ord(c)+shift)
if r > "z":
r = chr(ord(c) - 26 + shift)
# Replace the character at i
word[i] = r
# Convert the list back to a string
return ''.join(word)
if __name__ == "__main__": print encrypt("programming", 3)
Related
I am trying to find greatest length of a word from the string return it by using values of each letter from alphabets by assigning each letter it's value as per it's rank . So for example For a string s = 'abcd a', I intend to return 10 [a=1 + b=2 + c =3 + d=4] .But, I am getting output as 7 When I debugged the code, I noticed that in while loop my code skips i=2 and directly jumps on i=3. Where am I going wrong? Below is my code.
class Solution(object):
def highest_scoring_word(self,s):
# Dictionary of English letters
dt = {'a':1,'b':2,'c':3,'d':4,'e':5,'f':6,
'g':7,'h':8,'i':9,'j':10,'k':11,'l':12,
'm':13,'n':14,'o':15,'p':16,'q':17,
'r':18,'s':19,'t':20,'u':21,'v':22,
'w':23,'x':24,'y':25,'z':26}
value_sum =0
max_value =value_sum
for i in range(0,len(s)):
if s.upper():
s= s.lower()
words = s.split()
# convert the string in char array
to_char_array = list(words[i])
j=0
while j<len(to_char_array):
if to_char_array[j] in dt.keys() :
value_sum = max(dt.get(to_char_array[j]),value_sum + dt.get(to_char_array[j]))
max_value = max(value_sum,max_value)
else:
pass
j +=j+1
return max_value
if __name__ == '__main__':
p = 'abcd a'
print(Solution().highest_scoring_word(p))
`
I have created a dictionary where I have stored all letters in english alphabet and their values and later I have split the string into words using split() and then after converting each individual word into character array I have traversed it to find their occurrence in the dictionary and add to the final value. I am expecting to get a correct value of a string and finally the greatest value.
As you are using a class and methods, make use of them:
from string import ascii_lowercase as dt
class Solution(object):
def __init__(self, data):
self.scores = {}
self.words = data.lower().strip().split()
def get_scoring(self):
# for each word caculate the scoring
for word in self.words:
score = 0
# for each character in the word, find its index in 'a..z' and add it to score
# same as in your dt implementation (just using index not absolute values)
for c in word:
score += dt.find(c) + 1
self.scores[word] = score
print(self.scores)
# filer the dictionary by its greates value in order to get the word with max score:
return max(self.scores.keys(), key=lambda k: self.scores[k])
if __name__ == '__main__':
p = 'abcd fg11'
maxWord = Solution(p).get_scoring()
print(maxWord)
Out:
{'abcd': 10, 'fg11': 13}
fg11
Try using this:
class Solution(object):
def highest_scoring_word(self,s):
# Dictionary of English letters
dt = {'a':1,'b':2,'c':3,'d':4,'e':5,'f':6,
'g':7,'h':8,'i':9,'j':10,'k':11,'l':12,
'm':13,'n':14,'o':15,'p':16,'q':17,
'r':18,'s':19,'t':20,'u':21,'v':22,
'w':23,'x':24,'y':25,'z':26}
value_sum1 =0
max_value1 =value_sum1
value_sum2 =0
max_value2 =value_sum2
for i in range(0,len(s)):
if s.upper():
s= s.lower()
words = s.split()
if len(words)>1:
# convert the string in char array
to_char_array = list(words[0])
j=0
while j<len(to_char_array):
if to_char_array[j] in dt.keys() :
value_sum1 = max(dt.get(to_char_array[j]),value_sum1 + dt.get(to_char_array[j]))
max_value1 = max(value_sum1,max_value1)
else:
pass
j=j+1
to_char_array = list(words[1])
j=0
while j<len(to_char_array):
if to_char_array[j] in dt.keys() :
value_sum2 = max(dt.get(to_char_array[j]),value_sum2 + dt.get(to_char_array[j]))
max_value2 = max(value_sum2,max_value2)
else:
pass
j=j+1
if max_value2>max_value1:
return max_value2
elif max_value1>max_value2:
return max_value1
else:
return 'Both words have equal score'
else:
# convert the string in char array
to_char_array = list(words[i])
j=0
while j<len(to_char_array):
if to_char_array[j] in dt.keys() :
value_sum1 = max(dt.get(to_char_array[j]),value_sum1 + dt.get(to_char_array[j]))
max_value1 = max(value_sum1,max_value1)
else:
pass
j=j+1
return max_value1
if __name__ == '__main__':
p = 'abcd fg'
print(Solution().highest_scoring_word(p))
It is maybe of interest that the code can be greatly simplified by using features available in Python:
the_sum = sum(ord(c)-96 for c in s.lower() if c.isalpha())
to break this down. for c in s.lower() gets the lower-case characters one by one; the function ord() gives the numerical value with a of 97 so we subtract to get 1. Then we check if the character is a letter and if so accept it. Then sum() adds up all the numbers. You could break up this one line an check how the separate parts work.
Input:
string = "My dear adventurer, do you understand the nature of the given discussion?"
expected output:
string = 'My dear ##########, do you ########## the nature ## the given ##########?'
How can you replace the third word in a string of words with the # length equivalent of that word while avoiding counting special characters found in the string such as apostrophes('), quotations("), full stops(.), commas(,), exclamations(!), question marks(?), colons(:) and semicolons (;).
I took the approach of converting the string to a list of elements but am finding difficulty filtering out the special characters and replacing the words with the # equivalent. Is there a better way to go about it?
I solved it with:
s = "My dear adventurer, do you understand the nature of the given discussion?"
def replace_alphabet_with_char(word: str, replacement: str) -> str:
new_word = []
alphabet = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ'
for c in word:
if c in alphabet:
new_word.append(replacement)
else:
new_word.append(c)
return "".join(new_word)
every_nth_word = 3
s_split = s.split(' ')
result = " ".join([replace_alphabet_with_char(s_split[i], '#') if i % every_nth_word == every_nth_word - 1 else s_split[i] for i in range(len(s_split))])
print(result)
Output:
My dear ##########, do you ########## the nature ## the given ##########?
There are more efficient ways to solve this question, but I hope this is the simplest!
My approach is:
Split the sentence into a list of the words
Using that, make a list of every third word.
Remove unwanted characters from this
Replace third words in original string with # times the length of the word.
Here's the code (explained in comments) :
# original line
line = "My dear adventurer, do you understand the nature of the given discussion?"
# printing original line
print(f'\n\nOriginal Line:\n"{line}"\n')
# printing somehting to indicate that next few prints will be for showing what is happenning after each lone
print('\n\nStages of parsing:')
# splitting by spaces, into list
wordList = line.split(' ')
# printing wordlist
print(wordList)
# making list of every third word
thirdWordList = [wordList[i-1] for i in range(1,len(wordList)+1) if i%3==0]
# pritning third-word list
print(thirdWordList)
# characters that you don't want hashed
unwantedCharacters = ['.','/','|','?','!','_','"',',','-','#','\n','\\',':',';','(',')','<','>','{','}','[',']','%','*','&','+']
# replacing these characters by empty strings in the list of third-words
for unwantedchar in unwantedCharacters:
for i in range(0,len(thirdWordList)):
thirdWordList[i] = thirdWordList[i].replace(unwantedchar,'')
# printing third word list, now without punctuation
print(thirdWordList)
# replacing with #
for word in thirdWordList:
line = line.replace(word,len(word)*'#')
# Voila! Printing the result:
print(f'\n\nFinal Output:\n"{line}"\n\n')
Hope this helps!
Following works and does not use regular expressions
special_chars = {'.','/','|','?','!','_','"',',','-','#','\n','\\'}
def format_word(w, fill):
if w[-1] in special_chars:
return fill*(len(w) - 1) + w[-1]
else:
return fill*len(w)
def obscure(string, every=3, fill='#'):
return ' '.join(
(format_word(w, fill) if (i+1) % every == 0 else w)
for (i, w) in enumerate(string.split())
)
Here are some example usage
In [15]: obscure(string)
Out[15]: 'My dear ##########, do you ########## the nature ## the given ##########?'
In [16]: obscure(string, 4)
Out[16]: 'My dear adventurer, ## you understand the ###### of the given ##########?'
In [17]: obscure(string, 3, '?')
Out[17]: 'My dear ??????????, do you ?????????? the nature ?? the given ???????????'
With help of some regex. Explanation in the comments.
import re
imp = "My dear adventurer, do you understand the nature of the given discussion?"
every_nth = 3 # in case you want to change this later
out_list = []
# split the input at spaces, enumerate the parts for looping
for idx, word in enumerate(imp.split(' ')):
# only do the special logic for multiples of n (0-indexed, thus +1)
if (idx + 1) % every_nth == 0:
# find how many special chars there are in the current segment
len_special_chars = len(re.findall(r'[.,!?:;\'"]', word))
# ^ add more special chars here if needed
# subtract the number of special chars from the length of segment
str_len = len(word) - len_special_chars
# repeat '#' for every non-special char and add the special chars
out_list.append('#'*str_len + word[-len_special_chars] if len_special_chars > 0 else '')
else:
# if the index is not a multiple of n, just add the word
out_list.append(word)
print(' '.join(out_list))
A mixed of regex and string manipulation
import re
string = "My dear adventurer, do you understand the nature of the given discussion?"
new_string = []
for i, s in enumerate(string.split()):
if (i+1) % 3 == 0:
s = re.sub(r'[^\.:,;\'"!\?]', '#', s)
new_string.append(s)
new_string = ' '.join(new_string)
print(new_string)
I'm having trouble with a script to replace the normal letters to especial characters to test a translation system, here's an example (cha-mate is chá-mate but would be tested with chã-mate/chã-máte and other variations), but instead of creating this variations, it's switching all of the same characters to only one espcial letter, here's what it's printing:
chá-máte
chã-mãte
Here's what should print in theory:
cha-máte
cha-mãte
chá-mate
chã-mate
etc.
Here's the code and the json utilized:
def translation_tester(word):
esp_chars = {
'a': 'áã',
}
#words = [word]
for esp_char in esp_chars:
if esp_char in word:
replacement_chars = esp_chars[esp_char]
for i in range(len(replacement_chars)):
print(word.replace(esp_char, replacement_chars[i]))
def main():
words = ['cha-mate']
for word in words:
translation_tester(word)
main()
Anyway, any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!
To handle arbitrary number of replacements, you need to use recursion. This is how I did it.
intword = 'cha-mate'
esp_chars = {'a': 'áã'}
def wpermute(word, i=0):
for idx, c in enumerate(word[i:], i):
if c in esp_chars:
for s in esp_chars[c]:
newword = word[0:idx] + s + word[idx + 1:]
wpermute(newword, idx + 1)
if idx == len(word) -1:
print(word)
wpermute(intword)
which gives the output of 9 different ways the word can be written.
chá-máte
chá-mãte
chá-mate
chã-máte
chã-mãte
chã-mate
cha-máte
cha-mãte
cha-mate
There might be a nicer way to do this, but you can do the following (making sure to include the plain 'a' in the list of replacement chars):
import itertools
import re
def replace_at_indices(word, new_chars, indices):
new_word = word
for i, index in enumerate(indices):
new_word = new_word[:index] + new_chars[i] + new_word[index+1:]
return new_word
def translation_tester(word):
esp_chars = {
'a': 'aáã',
}
for esp_char in esp_chars:
replacement_chars = list(esp_chars[esp_char])
indices = [m.start() for m in re.finditer(esp_char, word)]
product = list(itertools.product(replacement_chars, repeat=len(indices)))
for p in product:
new_word = replace_at_indices(word, p, indices)
print(new_word)
def main():
words = ['cha-mate']
for word in words:
translation_tester(word)
main()
For your example, this should give you:
cha-mate
cha-máte
cha-mãte
chá-mate
chá-máte
chá-mãte
chã-mate
chã-máte
chã-mãte
See also:
Find all occurrences of a substring in Python
generating permutations with repetitions in python
Replacing a character from a certain index
import re
string = "is2 Thi1s T4est 3a"
def order(sentence):
res = ''
count = 1
list = sentence.split()
for i in list:
for i in list:
a = re.findall('\d+', i)
if a == [str(count)]:
res += " ".join(i)
count += 1
print(res)
order(string)
Above there is a code which I have problem with. Output which I should get is:
"Thi1s is2 3a T4est"
Instead I'm getting the correct order but with spaces in the wrong places:
"T h i 1 si s 23 aT 4 e s t"
Any idea how to make it work with this code concept?
You are joining the characters of each word:
>>> " ".join('Thi1s')
'T h i 1 s'
You want to collect your words into a list and join that instead:
def order(sentence):
number_words = []
count = 1
words = sentence.split()
for word in words:
for word in words:
matches = re.findall('\d+', word)
if matches == [str(count)]:
number_words.append(word)
count += 1
result = ' '.join(number_words)
print(result)
I used more verbose and clear variable names. I also removed the list variable; don't use list as a variable name if you can avoid it, as that masks the built-in list name.
What you implemented comes down to a O(N^2) (quadratic time) sort. You could instead use the built-in sort() function to bring this to O(NlogN); you'd extract the digit and sort on its integer value:
def order(sentence):
digit = re.compile(r'\d+')
return ' '.join(
sorted(sentence.split(),
key=lambda w: int(digit.search(w).group())))
This differs a little from your version in that it'll only look at the first (consecutive) digits, it doesn't care about the numbers being sequential, and will break for words without digits. It also uses a return to give the result to the caller rather than print. Just use print(order(string)) to print the return value.
If you assume the words are numbered consecutively starting at 1, then you can sort them in O(N) time even:
def order(sentence):
digit = re.compile(r'\d+')
words = sentence.split()
result = [None] * len(words)
for word in words:
index = int(digit.search(word).group())
result[index - 1] = word
return ' '.join(result)
This works by creating a list of the same length, then using the digits from each word to put the word into the correct index (minus 1, as Python lists start at 0, not 1).
I think the bug is simply in the misuse of join(). You want to concatenate the current sorted string. i is simply a token, hence simply add it to the end of the string. Code untested.
import re
string = "is2 Thi1s T4est 3a"
def order(sentence):
res = ''
count = 1
list = sentence.split()
for i in list:
for i in list:
a = re.findall('\d+', i)
if a == [str(count)]:
res = res + " " + i # your bug here
count += 1
print(res)
order(string)
I'm almost done with my program, but I've made a subtle mistake. My program is supposed to take a word, and by changing one letter at a time, is eventually supposed to reach a target word, in the specified number of steps. I had been trying at first to look for similarities, for example: if the word was find, and the target word lose, here's how my program would output in 4 steps:
['find','fine','line','lone','lose]
Which is actually the output I wanted. But if you consider a tougher set of words, like Java and work, the output is supposed to be in 6 steps.
['java', 'lava', 'lave', 'wave', 'wove', 'wore', 'work']
So my mistake is that I didn't realize you could get to the target word, by using letters that don't exist in the target word or original word.
Here's my Original Code:
import string
def changeling(word,target,steps):
alpha=string.ascii_lowercase
x=word##word and target has been changed to keep the coding readable.
z=target
if steps==0 and word!= target:##if the target can't be reached, return nothing.
return []
if x==z:##if target has been reached.
return [z]
if len(word)!=len(target):##if the word and target word aren't the same length print error.
print "error"
return None
i=1
if lookup
if lookup(z[0]+x[1:]) is True and z[0]+x[1:]!=x :##check every letter that could be from z, in variations of, and check if they're in the dictionary.
word=z[0]+x[1:]
while i!=len(x):
if lookup(x[:i-1]+z[i-1]+x[i:]) and x[:i-1]+z[i-1]+x[i:]!=x:
word=x[:i-1]+z[i-1]+x[i:]
i+=1
if lookup(x[:len(x)-1]+z[len(word)-1]) and x[:len(x)-1]+z[len(x)-1]!=x :##same applies here.
word=x[:len(x)-1]+z[len(word)-1]
y = changeling(word,target,steps-1)
if y :
return [x] + y##used to concatenate the first word to the final list, and if the list goes past the amount of steps.
else:
return None
Here's my current code:
import string
def changeling(word,target,steps):
alpha=string.ascii_lowercase
x=word##word and target has been changed to keep the coding readable.
z=target
if steps==0 and word!= target:##if the target can't be reached, return nothing.
return []
if x==z:##if target has been reached.
return [z]
holderlist=[]
if len(word)!=len(target):##if the word and target word aren't the same length print error.
print "error"
return None
i=1
for items in alpha:
i=1
while i!=len(x):
if lookup(x[:i-1]+items+x[i:]) is True and x[:i-1]+items+x[i:]!=x:
word =x[:i-1]+items+x[i:]
holderlist.append(word)
i+=1
if lookup(x[:len(x)-1]+items) is True and x[:len(x)-1]+items!=x:
word=x[:len(x)-1]+items
holderlist.append(word)
y = changeling(word,target,steps-1)
if y :
return [x] + y##used to concatenate the first word to the final list, and if the/
list goes past the amount of steps.
else:
return None
The differences between the two is that the first checks every variation of find with the letters from lose. Meaning: lind, fond, fisd, and fine. Then, if it finds a working word with the lookup function, it calls changeling on that newfound word.
As opposed to my new program, which checks every variation of find with every single letter in the alphabet.
I can't seem to get this code to work. I've tested it by simply printing what the results are of find:
for items in alpha:
i=1
while i!=len(x):
print (x[:i-1]+items+x[i:])
i+=1
print (x[:len(x)-1]+items)
This gives:
aind
fand
fiad
fina
bind
fbnd
fibd
finb
cind
fcnd
ficd
finc
dind
fdnd
fidd
find
eind
fend
fied
fine
find
ffnd
fifd
finf
gind
fgnd
figd
fing
hind
fhnd
fihd
finh
iind
find
fiid
fini
jind
fjnd
fijd
finj
kind
fknd
fikd
fink
lind
flnd
fild
finl
mind
fmnd
fimd
finm
nind
fnnd
find
finn
oind
fond
fiod
fino
pind
fpnd
fipd
finp
qind
fqnd
fiqd
finq
rind
frnd
fird
finr
sind
fsnd
fisd
fins
tind
ftnd
fitd
fint
uind
fund
fiud
finu
vind
fvnd
fivd
finv
wind
fwnd
fiwd
finw
xind
fxnd
fixd
finx
yind
fynd
fiyd
finy
zind
fznd
fizd
finz
Which is perfect! Notice that each letter in the alphabet goes through my word at least once. Now, what my program does is use a helper function to determine if that word is in a dictionary that I've been given.
Consider this, instead of like my first program, I now receive multiple words that are legal, except when I do word=foundword it means I'm replacing the previous word each time. Which is why I'm trying holderlist.append(word).
I think my problem is that I need changeling to run through each word in holderlist, and I'm not sure how to do that. Although that's only speculation.
Any help would be appreciated,
Cheers.
I might be slightly confused about what you need, but by borrowing from this post I belive I have some code that should be helpful.
>>> alphabet = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
>>> word = 'java'
>>> splits = [(word[:i], word[i:]) for i in range(len(word) + 1)]
>>> splits
[('', 'java'), ('j', 'ava'), ('ja', 'va'), ('jav', 'a'), ('java', '')]
>>> replaces = [a + c + b[1:] for a, b in splits for c in alphabet if b]
>>> replaces
['aava', 'bava', 'cava', 'dava', 'eava', 'fava', 'gava', 'hava', 'iava', 'java', 'kava', 'lava', 'mava', 'nava', 'oava', 'pava', 'qava', 'rava', 'sava', 'tava', 'uava', 'vava', 'wav
a', 'xava', 'yava', 'zava', 'java', 'jbva', 'jcva', 'jdva', 'jeva', 'jfva', 'jgva', 'jhva', 'jiva', 'jjva', 'jkva', 'jlva', 'jmva', 'jnva', 'jova', 'jpva', 'jqva', 'jrva', 'jsva', '
jtva', 'juva', 'jvva', 'jwva', 'jxva', 'jyva', 'jzva', 'jaaa', 'jaba', 'jaca', 'jada', 'jaea', 'jafa', 'jaga', 'jaha', 'jaia', 'jaja', 'jaka', 'jala', 'jama', 'jana', 'jaoa', 'japa'
, 'jaqa', 'jara', 'jasa', 'jata', 'jaua', 'java', 'jawa', 'jaxa', 'jaya', 'jaza', 'java', 'javb', 'javc', 'javd', 'jave', 'javf', 'javg', 'javh', 'javi', 'javj', 'javk', 'javl', 'ja
vm', 'javn', 'javo', 'javp', 'javq', 'javr', 'javs', 'javt', 'javu', 'javv', 'javw', 'javx', 'javy', 'javz']
Once you have a list of all possible replaces, you can simply do
valid_words = [valid for valid in replaces if lookup(valid)]
Which should give you all words that can be formed by replacing 1 character in word. By placing this code in a separate method, you could take a word, obtain possible next words from that current word, and recurse over each of those words. For example:
alphabet = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
def next_word(word):
splits = [(word[:i], word[i:]) for i in range(len(word) + 1)]
replaces = [a + c + b[1:] for a, b in splits for c in alphabet if b]
return [valid for valid in replaces if lookup(valid)]
Is this enough help? I think your code could really benefit by separating tasks into smaller chunks.
Fixed your code:
import string
def changeling(word, target, steps):
alpha=string.ascii_lowercase
x = word #word and target has been changed to keep the coding readable.
z = target
if steps == 0 and word != target: #if the target can't be reached, return nothing.
return []
if x == z: #if target has been reached.
return [z]
holderlist = []
if len(word) != len(target): #if the word and target word aren't the same length print error.
raise BaseException("Starting word and target word not the same length: %d and %d" % (len(word),
i = 1
for items in alpha:
i=1
while i != len(x):
if lookup(x[:i-1] + items + x[i:]) is True and x[:i-1] + items + x[i:] != x:
word = x[:i-1] + items + x[i:]
holderlist.append(word)
i += 1
if lookup(x[:len(x)-1] + items) is True and x[:len(x)-1] + items != x:
word = x[:len(x)-1] + items
holderlist.append(word)
y = [changeling(pos_word, target, steps-1) for pos_word in holderlist]
if y:
return [x] + y #used to concatenate the first word to the final list, and if the list goes past the amount of steps.
else:
return None
Where len(word) and len(target), it'd be better to raise an exception than print something obscure, w/o a stack trace and non-fatal.
Oh and backslashes(\), not forward slashes(/), are used to continue lines. And they don't work on comments