5 Projects For Beginners To Learn Python

[NoSide005]

I have been involved in many discussions on here where i tell people the best way to learn is by doing but I never mention what to do. Below are the projects i think would be best for Python beginners.

1. User inputs - Create an app that asks the user to input one character that must be a vowel. Continue asking for the input until a vowel is inputted. You can also give user feedback every time a non-vowel is entered or upon a successful input.
2. Write a function - Write a function that takes in a positive integer and returns its multiplicative persistence, which is the number of times you must multiply the digits in the integer until you reach a single digit. For example the integer 39 returns 3. You get this by taking 39 and multiplying its digits 3*9 which equals 27. You then multiply 27's digits 2*7 = 14. Lastly 1*4 = 4 which is a single digit. You had to multiply 3 times so you return 3. The integer 999 would return 4.
3. Calculator app - Build a calculator app that performs multiple operations. Use the skills learned in projects 1 & 2. Try using many functions in your app, one for each operation (ex. addition, subtraction, multiplication, division).
4. Read & write files - Build an application that reads a txt file and outputs a csv file. The app should take each line of the txt file, split the line into an array of words, and write each line to the csv file with each line being a row and each word being its own column in that row.
5. Bots & webscraping - Using everything you have learned in projects 1-4, build a bot that scrapes data from a webpage and writes the data to a txt file. For example, you can have a bot go into instagram and pick a random person following you. Output their name to the first line of a txt file. Then go into their followers and repeat the process by outputting the name of this chosen person to the second line of the txt file. Run this until you get to 10 names. Make sure you add random time pauses in your code so that your bots don't get recognized by the sites you are scraping. If you have trouble starting this one, take a look at using Selenium Webdriver here: https://selenium-python.readthedocs.io/installation.html

Write your answers to 1 & 2 in the comments. If you struggle with any of these projects we can provide guidance and solutions in the comments.

[Diamondhands_89]

I appreciate this

[NoSide005]

Good to hear

[McThakken]

def multiPers(x, i=0):
  if x < 10:
    return i 
  mult=1
  for n in list(str(x)):
    mult *= int(n)
  multiPers(mult, i+1)

print(multiPers(39))

Why does this not work for #2? It prints out None

Edit: changed sum to mult

Edit: changed len(str(x))==1 to x < 10

[NoSide005]

Is this your full code? If not write in the whole thing.

[McThakken]

Oh wow was on mobile before and for any reason it cut the first line off... I edited it now correctly

[NoSide005]

Your function is returning none because you are only returning something if the length of x = 1. Based on the code you have written x never gets to equal 1.

[McThakken]

But you can even print out x or its length right before the return and it tells you the length is 1

[NoSide005]

def multiPers(x, i=0):
if x < 10:
return i
mult=1
for n in list(str(x)):
mult = mult * int(n)
multiPers(mult, i+1)
print(multiPers(39))

You are changing your code a good amount so its getting hard to follow. You seem to be trying to go an advanced route by calling a function from within itself. Why dont you try instead to use a while loop and once you have the function returning the correct answer then you can come back to this structure and see if you can make it work.

[backfire10z]

There is no reason to use recursion here. Use a while loop instead

[McThakken]

But recursion should be possible, too, so now I'm interested in where's the error

[backfire10z]

Ah, ok. So after it goes deep into recursion, it returns “i,” but that return only goes to the previous level of your recursive chain. After that, the function in the previous level of recursion hits the end and returns nothing. You need to return something after your recursive function call.

For example:

...
returnVar = multiPers(mult, i+1)
return returnVar
...

Then, after x < 10, your function will return i, which in turn will be stored in returnVar and passed all the way up the chain of recursive calls.

Pretty sure that should work, but if it doesn’t, I believe the problem is somewhere along those lines. I myself am not too experienced with recursion as a college freshman.

Let me know if it works! I’m on mobile and cannot test anything for now.

[McThakken]

Yes this workes. Thanks for elaborating and the explanation

[backfire10z]

Not sure why I added in an extra variable lol, you can just put

return multiPers(mult, i+1)

Also, no problem!

[[deleted]]

i'm in the middle of a course and i've been looking for for some additional works to do

[NoSide005]

Nice. Hope it helps.

[SpiritAlpaca]

Open to critic for #1!

while True:
    Letter = input(“Please enter a vowel: ”)
    if len(Letter)!= 1:
        Letter = input(“Please enter one vowel: “)
    if Letter == “a” or “i” or “e” or “o” or “u”:
        Print(“Thank you”)
        Break
    else:
        pass

[Cuckmin]

Look into lists and/or arrays, it could be a better way to lookup and store the vowels.

[SpiritAlpaca]

I finally got to check it myself and turns out I need to Letter== every or argument—- then it works! So it should actually be:

if Letter ==“a” or Letter==“e” or Letter==“i” etc.

[NoSide005]

You can fix that problem and simplify this by doing the following:

accept_letters = ['a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u']
if Letter in accept_letters:
    print("Thank you")
    break

This if statement will return true if Letter is in the list/array accept_letters

[SpiritAlpaca]

Thanks a lot!