CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
mars
mars

Reputation: 49

Python Programming String Handling Functions

So, I'm a beginner to programming. I am trying to create a program where the user can input a sentence and the program will tell the user how many letters are in that sentence. 

counter=0

wrd=raw_input("Please enter a short sentence.")

if wrd.isalpha():
counter=counter+1
print "You have" + str(counter) +"in your sentence."

When I enter this, my output is blank. What is my mistake in this program?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 113

Answers (4)

Oli Radlett
Oli Radlett

Reputation: 86

You could always remove the spaces from your sentence using replace() then use len() to get how many characters are in the sentence.

For example:

sentence = input("Type in a sentence: ") # Ask the user to input a sentence
sentence = sentence.replace(" ", "") # Replace the spaces in the sentence with nothing
print("Your sentence is " + str(len(sentence)) +  " characters long") # Use len() to print out number of letters in the sentence

Upvotes: 0

Harish Talanki
Harish Talanki

Reputation: 876

First of all as @kalpesh mentioned, the statement counter=counter+1 should be indented.

Second of all, you need to iterate over the entire string entered and then count the number of characters or whatever the logic you need.

counter=0

wrd=raw_input("Please enter a short sentence.")

for i in wrd:
    if i.isalpha():
        counter = counter+1

print "You have " + str(counter) +"in your sentence."

Once you start learning more, then you can use the below code,

counter=[]
count = 0
wrd=raw_input("Please enter a short sentence.")

counter = [len(i) for i in wrd.split() if i.isalpha()]

print "You have " + str(sum(counter)) +"in your sentence."

I am just splitting the word and then checking if it is alpha or not and using the list comprehension to iterate over the string entered.

Upvotes: 0

martianwars
martianwars

Reputation: 6500

You need to indent code inside if blocks. In the code you have provided, you've forgotten to indent counter = counter + 1.

You are missing a loop across all characters of wrd. Try this instead, 

counter = 0
wrd = raw_input("Please enter a short sentence.")
# Iterate over every character in string
for letter in wrd:
  # Check if the letter is an alphabet
  if letter.isalpha():
    # Increment counter only in this condition
    counter += 1

print "You have " + str(counter) + " in your sentence."

Upvotes: 1

Kat
Kat

Reputation: 485

wrd.isalpha() returns a boolean (true or false). So if the function returns true, counter=counter+1 will be called once (and only once). You need to iterate through every letter of wrd and call isalpha() on each letter.

Upvotes: 0

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