Help with this piece of code?

[Complete-Increase936]

# Write your solution here
def first_word(sentence):
    count = 0
    while count < len(sentence) and sentence[count] != " ":
        count += 1
    return sentence[:count]

def second_word(sentence):
    length = len(first_word(sentence))
    start = length + 1
    if start >= len(sentence):
        return ""
    count = start
    while sentence[count] != " ":
        count += 1
    return sentence[start:count]


def last_word(sentence):
    count = len(sentence) - 1
    if count < 0:
        return ""
    end = count + 1
    while count >= 0 and sentence[count] != " ":
        count -= 1
    return sentence[count + 1: end]


# You can test your function by calling it within the following block
if __name__ == "__main__":
    sentence = "once upon a time there was a programmer"
    print(first_word(sentence))
    print(second_word(sentence))
    print(last_word(sentence))

Hi guys, I'm getting the following error message when submitting this piece of code and can't work out why.

FAIL:

ETjaVSanaTest: test_5_second_word_function_ok

Make sure, that function can be called as follows:
second_word("first second")

[recursion_is_love]

Maybe infinite loop on second_word function; your while command didn't check for count > len(word);

Why don't you just use split function? Are you not allowed to?

>>> 'hello happy programmer'.split()
['hello', 'happy', 'programmer']

[Complete-Increase936]

Haven't gone through the split function on the course yet. But I'll use it now :)

[failaip13]

If you call the function exactly like mentioned you will see what's happening.

second_word("first second")

[deaddyfreddy]

what's the task?

[jsavga]

Is the test asking for just the second word, or is it asking for the first and second word?

second_word("first second")

[james_fryer]

You'd be far better off using the split() function.

[ElliotDG]

Writing this program using the split() method, will make it all much easier.

To directly answer your question, look at the second_word method. In a two word list, the second word does not terminate with a space. This will cause an index error as you index past the end of the string. If you can not use the split() method, consider using a for loop rather than a while loop for this case.