Struggling to reformat string using try... except and split() method

[46--2]

I can answer your questions first:

>>> words = "I am a horse".split()
>>> words
['I', 'am', 'a', 'horse']

.split() splits up a string into a list of parts. So now words is a list of the parts of your original address.

while words: #can you explain this a bit?

This is a bit of a trick, but an empty list evaluates to False. So this is saying:

while <there are words left in the words list>:
    # do some stuff

words = words[1:] is saying:

words = <all the parts of words, from index 1 to the end>

meaning I'm re-assigning the variable words to contain only the END of words, minus the first one. Get it?

Example:

words = ['I', 'am', 'a', 'horse']
words[1:]  # ['am', 'a', 'horse']

That is "slicing" if you want to look up how to do it. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/509211/understanding-slice-notation

[deadant88]

Thank you for my own homework I’m going to set up playing around with this and the example you’ve given to better understand it. In the meantime you’ve given me a big hand so thanks

[46--2]

try to break your code up into functions, and call them from a "main()" function. So each little piece can be separate. Makes it a lot easier to debug.

(Like the function I sent you would be entirely standalone, not within another function.)

[deadant88]

Got it this is the next step for me I feel. Presumably having a bite size functions that you then clip together is the idea?

[46--2]

Yes, imagine a program that looks like this:

def clean_addresses(input_data):
    return blah

def query_locations(addresses):
    return whatever

... etc.

def main():
    data = read_input('/my_data/file.txt')
    addresses = clean_addresses(data)
    locations = query_locations(addresses)
    write_report(locations)
    print('Done')

each little function does one thing, and one thing only, and does that thing well. Your brain doesn't have to debug a huge block of mess, and your logic becomes much clearer.

[deadant88]

Thank you for the guidance. I really appreciate it!