CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
busyboybean
busyboybean

Reputation: 21

Python Indexing not returning expected value

I am trying to return the value M from Mr. Smith but whenever I run my code below it returns ''

>>>name = input("Please input your name: ")
Please input your name: Mr. Smith 
>>> if name == name.find(' ') and name.isalpha():
    get_initial = name[0]
>>>get_initial
''

Upvotes: 0

Views: 71

Answers (3)

Hisham Karam
Hisham Karam

Reputation: 1318

python 3 

   name = input("Please input your name: ")
    c=name.strip()[0]
    if c.isalpha():
        print(c)

python 2 :

>>> name = raw_input("Please input your name: ")
Please input your name:   Hisham
>>> c=name.strip()[0]
>>> if c.isalpha():
    print c

output py3:

Python 3.5.2 (default, Dec 2015, 13:05:11)
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux

Please input your name:   dsfgsdf
d

output py2:

H

Upvotes: 2

Raza
Raza

Reputation: 215

Assuming you have to find the first character of a name....

def find_initial(name):
    i = 0
    initial_name_size = len(name)

    while True:
        name = name[i:]
        if name.isalpha():
            get_initial = name[0]
            return get_initial
        else:
            i = i+1
            if i >= initial_name_size:
                return 'There is no initial'


name = input("Please input your name: ")
print find_initial(name)

Upvotes: 0

sramij
sramij

Reputation: 4925

I see a lot of problems in this proposed code.

First of all, input() evaluates the input string as a python expression and that's not what you want, you need to use raw_input() instead. Second, isalpha() won't return True if input includes '.' or spaces, so you need to find another metric, for example, if only alphabetical characters are allowed, you can use isalpha() this way:

name_nospaces = "".join(name.split())
if name_nospaces.isalpha():
    ...

Then, it doesn't make much sense to do name == name.find(' '), just have:

if name.find(' '):
    ...

Upvotes: 0

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