Module: Emerging Technologies / 4th Year
Lecturer: Dr Ian McLoughlin
Original Problem Sheet
The aim of these problems is to give you a good knowledge of basic Python. The problems are good for either learning Python from scratch or refreshing your memory of the language. They cover a variety of variable types, calculations, loops, user input, and in-built functions, among other things.
I'm using Python 3.6 (download here), which is slightly different to Python 2.7. For example, Python 2.7 doesn't require parentheses in print statements, whereas 3.6 does - keep this in mind when running these programs. Anaconda is great for managing packages and libraries used in Python, so I'd recommend downloading that.
Once you have Python set up, open command line and cd to wherever you want to save the repository, type git clone https://github.com/rebeccabernie/PythonFundamentals.git and finally, cd PythonFundamentals. To run any program, type python programname.py.
If you're getting errors when trying to run a program, you may need to add python to your path variable.
1. Hello World
A standard "Hello World" program.
2. Current Time
Prints the current time to the screen.
3. FizzBuzz
This program outputs all numbers 1 - 100 inclusive. If a number is divisible by 3, "Fizz" is printed instead of the number. The same goes for multiples of 5, except "Buzz" is printed. If a number is a multiple of both 3 and 5, the output is "FizzBuzz". For example:
1
2
Fizz
4
Buzz
Fizz
7
8
Fizz
Buzz
11
Fizz
13
14
FizzBuzz
4. Factorial
The user enters a number. The factorial of that number is calculated by multiplying it by every number preceding it and the result is printed to the screen. For example, 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120. The program also calculates the sum of the digits in the answer, i.e. 120 = 1 + 2 + 0 = 3.
5. Guessing Game
The program generates a random number for the user to guess. The program tells the user if their guess was too high or too low, and tells them how many tries it took them when they get the number right. The program does not count multiple guesses of the same number. Below is an example of one game, notice how 33 was guessed twice but only counted as a try once.
Guess a number between 1 and 50.
Your guess: 25
Too low, try again.
38
Too high, try again.
33
Too low, try again.
33
Too low, try again.
35
Too low, try again.
36
You're right!
It took you 5 tries.
6. Smallest and Largest in a List
The user enters a list of 5 numbers, and the program calculates and prints the smallest and largest numbers in the list.
7. Palindrome Test
The user enters a word (or sentence), and the program tests whether the string is a palindrome (i.e. the original and reverse of the word are spelled the same).
8. Merge Two Lists and Sort
The user enters two lists containing three numbers each. The program merges the two lists into one, and sorts the new list from lowest to highest.
9. Newton's Square Root Method
The user enters a number and their guess for the square root of that number. The user can't enter any negative number for x (not possible without going into complex / imaginary numbers etc), but can enter a negative number for their square root guess (-2 x -2 = 4). The program uses Newton's method to calculate the square root using the user's guess (z), the original number(x), and the new approximate(the equation result from the last iteration of the loop):
newApproximate = z - ((z* - x) / (2 * z))
The program stops calculating a new approximate when the change in results between loops becomes less than 0.00000000001. Below is an output example.
Enter a number: 77
Sqrt guess: 9
Math.sqrt(x): 8.7749643873921225889489505789242684841156005859375
Newton's Method: 8.77496438739212 (4 iterations)
10. Reverse a String
The user enters a word or sentence. The program reverses the string using both the easy, built in str(word)[::-1] function, and a written function that loops through the string to reverse it manually. Both results are the same.