On 7/9/2014 10:27 AM, sssdevelop wrote:
Hello,
I have working code - but looking for better/improved code. Better coding
practices, better algorithm :)
Problem: Given sequence of increasing integers, print blocks of consecutive
integers.
Input: [51, 53, 55, 67, 68, 91, 92, 93, 94, 99]
Outout: [67, 68], [91, 92, 93, 94]
Recommendations:
1. If you are just beginning Python, use the current version, now 3.4.
2. Separate interface code that gets input and presents output from the
function that processes the increasing sequence. The function should not
care whether the ints come from a user, file, or calculation.
3. Think in terms of iterables and iterators rather than lists (this is
clearer in 3.x, where some builtins have been converted). The function
should not care what class is used to convey the sequence of numbers.
This happens to make it easier to solve the 'pump-priming' problem you
stumbled over.
4. For designing a loop, what is the loop invariant that you want, that
will make writing the code easy. For this problem, "tem is a non-emptly
list of consecutive integers". Remember that a list of one int
qualifies. Using for loops with the proper iterable solves the other
part of the loop invariant: the current item is the next item to be
compared to the last item of tem. If tem is always non-empty, that
comparison is always possible.
5. Remember that Python code is generic unless constrained. What should
happen if the function gets non-int numbers, with or without an integer
value? What should happen if the sequence is not increasing, but
contains consecutive subsequences. For beginning code, one could decide
to meet the spec given for input that meets the condition and not care
otherwise. The code below works for any sequence (even infinite) of
objects that can be incremented by 1 and compared to the next.
6. Write an automated test. For one test, something like this works.
ci = consec([51, 53, 55, 67, 68, 91, 92, 93, 94, 99])
print(next(ci) == [67, 68], next(ci) == [91, 92, 93, 94])
but since you (properly) noted several test cases
a = [51, 53, 55, 67, 68, 91, 92, 93, 94, 99]
#a = []
#a = [10]
#a = [10, 11, 12, 15]
I went ahead and used unittest, at the cost of three lines of
'boilerplate' code. I added a case with a final consecutive sequence.
Good thing, because it initially failed because I initially forgot to
check tem after the loop.
import unittest
def consec(iterable):
"Yield blocks of consecutive integers as a list."
it = iter(iterable)
first = next(it)
tem = [first]
for n in it:
# tem is a non-empty list of consecutive ints
if n == tem[-1] + 1:
tem.append(n)
else:
if len(tem) >= 2:
yield tem
tem = [n]
if len(tem) >= 2:
yield tem
class Test(unittest.TestCase):
def test_consec(self):
def eq(seq, blocks):
self.assertEqual(list(consec(seq)), blocks)
eq((), [])
eq([1], [])
eq([1,2,3], [[1,2,3]]) # block at beginning or end
eq([-1, 1,2,3, 5], [[1,2,3]]) # block in middle
eq((-1, 1,2,3, 5, 7,8,9, 11), [[1,2,3], [7,8,9]]) # 2 blocks
unittest.main(verbosity=2)
>>>
test_consec (__main__.Test) ... ok
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.016s
OK
--
Terry Jan Reedy
--
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
