CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
hs96
hs96

Reputation: 79

An alternative way of writing Pig Latin Program in Python

I am revisiting a B-Language translation program example in Python from Stanford's notes. This program works where words are transformed such that every vowel cluster is reduplicated with a leading "b".

For example:

The code below works perfectly fine, but due to confusion, I was wondering if there's an alternative way to compute the translate(word, separator="b") function which converts a word string by reduplicating each vowel cluster with a leading b. Is it possible to find out a way which exclude the usage of the computation "start = -1"? 

def translate(word, separator="b"):
   start = -1
   translation = ""
   for i in range(len(word)):
      ch = word[i]
      if isEnglishVowel(ch):
         if start == -1:
            start = i
      else:
         if start >= 0:
            translation += word[start:i] + separator + word[start:i]
            start = -1
         translation += ch
   if start >= 0:
      translation += word[start:] + separator + word[start:]
   return translation

def isEnglishVowel(ch):
   return len(ch) == 1 and "aeiou".find(ch) >= 0

def TestTranslate():
   while True:
      word = input("Enter a single word [or hit enter to quit]: ");
      if word == "": break
      translation = translate(word)
      print("\"{}\" -> \"{}\"".format(word, translation))

if __name__ == "__main__":
   TestTranslate()

Thank you.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 139

Answers (1)

Tyler Donaldson
Tyler Donaldson

Reputation: 456

I modified the code a bit. It uses vowels instead of start but the internal logic is a little more simplified. Basically grow vowels until you encounter a consonant, then pop vowels into the translation string with the separator in between.

def translate(word, separator="b"):
    translation = ""
    vowels = ""
    for ch in word:
        if vowels and not isEnglishVowel(ch):
            translation += separator + vowels
            vowels = ""
        translation += ch
        if isEnglishVowel(ch):
            vowels += ch
    return translation + separator + vowels if vowels else translation


def isEnglishVowel(ch):
    return len(ch) == 1 and ch in 'aeiou'


def TestTranslate():
    while True:
        word = input("Enter a single word [or hit enter to quit]: ")
        if word == "": break
        translation = translate(word)
        print("\"{}\" -> \"{}\"".format(word, translation))


if __name__ == "__main__":
    TestTranslate()

Upvotes: 1

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