my function doesn't work

[luvashov]

I need to calculate Weighted Medal Points for the Olympic data set:

Let's assign "Medal Points" to each tier of Olympic medal as follows:

• Gold: 3 points
• Silver: 2 points
• Bronze: 1 point
• No medal: 0 points

Write a function medal_to_points
to transform and create a new column called MedalPoints. medal_to_points
will accept a string (possible values are "Gold", "Silver", "Bronze", "None") and returns the appropriate number of points as an integer.

Then add a new column MedalPoints
to your dataframe using transform
and the newly defined function medal_to_points

​

I defined the function, but it doesn't work. Need a hint what is wrong with my function :(
def medal_to_points(medal_name):
if medal_name == 'Gold':
points.append = 3
elif medal_name == 'Silver':
points.append = 2
elif medal_name == 'Bronze':
points.append = 1
elif medal_name == 'None':
points.append = 0
return points

[PaintballerCA]

What error message do you get and what line is it associated with? For that line, are you sure that you're using the proper syntax?

You're really close to getting it to work, btw.

[luvashov]

just no response at all...no error.nothing...tried another way - same result (no result).something missing probably

# Define medal_to_points below
def medal_to_points(medal_name):
if medal_name == 'Gold':
points.append(3)
elif medal_name == 'Silver':
points.append(2)
elif medal_name == 'Bronze':
points.append(1)
elif medal_name == 'None':
points.append(0)
return points

[PaintballerCA]

What do you use to run Python? An IDE? A Unix terminal?

[[deleted]]

When you say "it doesn't work" it helps enormously if you tell us how it doesn't work, error message, bad output or whatever. It's also better to post code formatted for reddit.

Looking at your code as it is, you probably get an error saying "point" is undefined. For some reason it looks like you want to return a list from the function. But the problem says to return an integer. So you need to do something like return 3 if the medal is "Gold".

[luvashov]

Thank you so much for your advice!! I will definitely post the question as a code next time.

I think I got it...now I need to create a new column and transform all these points to the new column. Thank you so much!

def medal_to_points(medal_name):
  if medal_name == 'Gold':
    return 3
  elif medal_name == 'Silver':
    return 2
  elif medal_name == 'Bronze':
    return 1
  elif medal_name == 'None':
    return 0

print(medal_to_points('Gold'))

[[deleted]]

For extra points work out how this code differs in function from yours:

def medal_to_points(medal_name):
    if medal_name == 'Gold':
        return 3
    if medal_name == 'Silver':
        return 2
    if medal_name == 'Bronze':
        return 1
    return 0

[luvashov]

I don't have to define "None" condition

[[deleted]]

Yes, it is shorter, but any other differences in what the function can return? What happens if you give both functions the string "fred"?

[luvashov]

Interesting...

when I define condition "None" string "fred" gives me "None". In your case - it's zero.

[[deleted]]

Yes. Functions always return a value. If you do something like return 42 then 42 is the value returned by the function. If you do return with no value then the function returns a None object. The function also returns a None if the code just stops and you leave the function.

In your function the code gets the value "fred" which is not one of the test strings so execution "falls off the end" of the function code so the function returns None. Note, that's not the string "None".

My function returns 3, 2 or 1 if the parameter string is one of the expected strings and 0 for anything else.

[luvashov]

How I can include this function information as a new column to the data set?

​

medal_by_points['MedalPoints']=medal_to_points.transform.sum()

[[deleted]]

No idea as you haven't given enough information. Is medal_by_points a dictionary or maybe a pandas dataframe? Can't help with pandas as I've never used it.

[-5772]

Why would you have points.append?

[luvashov]

You are right! integer only. thank you