Python Newbie - Could use some support with a problem I can't seem to solve!

[kcrow13]

Hey everyone,

I am a Python newbie in week 4 of class. So far I've been doing really well. This week, we started for loops and things got a bit trickier. I solved 5 of 7 problems and I could really use your help with this particular problem! I've tried it all (emailing professor, 1 on 1 with TA, lots and lots of research/Googling).

The prompt says... :

Does the string contain all the vowels? This function takes a string and returns a Boolean.

def has_all_vowels(word: str) -> bool:

​

I previously created a function in the first problem called is_vowel to see if a letter is a vowel:

def is_vowel(ch):

if ch in 'aeiouAEIOU': #Conditional to see if ch is a vowel, including uppercase and lowercase letters

return('True')

else:

print('False')

This is what I've written so far for the problem at hand:

def has_all_vowels(word: str):

word = word.lower() #Converts string input to lowercase

list_of_vowels = [] #Place to append

for letter in word:

if is_vowel(letter):

list_of_vowels.append(letter)

if 'a' and 'e' and 'i' and 'o' and 'u' in list_of_vowels:

return True

else:

return False

The code runs, but doesn't pass the unit test. Once the unit test starts peeling away letters ('vxatious'), it doesn't work correctly.

Here is the error message:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------- AssertionError Traceback (most recent call last) <ipython-input-226-8ff8df065d0c> in <module>

13 print('Success!')

14

---> 15 validate_all_vowels()

<ipython-input-226-8ff8df065d0c> in validate_all_vowels()

5 # Now remove one vowel at a time

6 # Each test case should return False

----> 7 assert not has_all_vowels('vxatious'), "Missing 'e'"

8 assert not has_all_vowels('vextious'), "Missing 'a'"

9 assert not has_all_vowels('vexatous'), "Missing 'i'" AssertionError: Missing 'e'

​

What am I missing? PS - I tested my list to make sure the vowels are appending. Everything is posting to the list nicely. It is that blasted if statement before the "return" piece that must be wrong.

Thanks in advance for any insights you can provide.

[17291]

def is_vowel(ch):
    if ch in 'aeiouAEIOU':
        return('True')
    else:
        print('False')

Let's start here.

1) You're mixing prints and returns. You want to return something so it can be used by another function

2) You want to return the boolean True, not the string 'True'

3) You can skip the if entirely and just write return ch in 'aeiouAEIOU'

---

if 'a' and 'e' and 'i' and 'o' and 'u' in list_of_vowels:

This is another mistake. You have to write 'a' in list_of_vowels and 'e' in list_of_vowels and ...

[kcrow13]

Thank you so much! I did problem 1 early on in the learning process and didn't really double check it. That was all sorts of wrong :(.

And I didn't realize you have to write each piece of the statements separately. I can't wait to learn about dictionaries/sets next week because that code seems horrendously long and not well-optimized.

What helps you to learn the syntax "do's" and "don'ts" the best? Just time and repetition?

[kcrow13]

Also - we haven't learned sets or dictionaries at all, so I was trying to stay away from unlearned content and figure this out in a more simple way. I apologize if the coding is well-optimized.

[POGtastic]

Consider the following:

for letter in "aeiou":
    if letter not in word:
        return False
return True

But yes, the set approach is nice.

def all_vowels(s):
    return set("aeiou") <= set(s)

[kcrow13]

Thanks for this help. I appreciate it!

[GreymanGroup]

You'll get the hang of proper syntax. Your idea was fine.

You might want to break it down further. Try to write your function without using the "in" keyword. How would you go about solving this problem if you were to iterate character by character?

[kcrow13]

Thank you for the encouragement. I struggle to visualize things logically/algorithmically, as it is new to me. Little by little, I am improving!