How to generalize a function by adding arguments?

Question

I am completing a beginner's Python book. I think I understand what the question is asking.

Encapsulate into a function, and generalize it so that it accepts the string and the letter as arguments.

fruit = "banana"
count = 0
for char in fruit:
    if char == 'a':
        count += 1
print count

My answer is:

def count_letters(letter, strng):
    fruit = strng
    count = 0
    for char in fruit:
        if char == letter:
            count += 1
    print count

count_letters(a, banana)

But it is wrong: name 'a' is not defined. I don't know where I'm going wrong. I thought the interpreter should know that 'a' is the argument for 'letter', and so on.

So I must be missing something fundamental.

Can you help?

Foo Bar, I agree, but the Python book's exercise states: Encapsulate this code in a function named count, and generalize it so that it accepts the string and the letter as arguments. Defining a new count function with those two arguments. pythonlearn.com/html-270/book007.html#hevea_default363 — noobninja
– noobninja, Commented May 27, 2016 at 17:58

Blender · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-28 20:47:20Z

9

a and banana are variable names. Since you never defined either of them (e.g. a = 'x'), the interpreter cannot use them.

You need to wrap them in quotes and turn them into strings:

count_letters('a', 'banana')

Or assign them beforehand and pass the variables:

l = 'a'
s = 'banana'

count_letters(l, s)

answered Sep 28, 2013 at 20:47

Blender

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Comments

noobninja · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-27 16:25:32Z

0

#!/usr/bin/python2.7

word = 'banana'

def count(word, target) :
    counter = 0
    for letter in word :
        if letter == target :
            counter += 1
    print 'Letter', letter, 'occurs', counter, 'times.'

count(word, 'a')

edited May 27, 2016 at 16:25

answered May 27, 2016 at 16:08

noobninja

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Comments

gosuto · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-15 16:57:20Z

0

this is with Python 3:

def count_letters(letter, strng):
count = 0
for char in letter:
    if char == strng:
        count += 1
print(count)
a = input("Enter the word: ")
b = input("Enter the letter: ")
count_letters(a, b)

edited Apr 15, 2020 at 16:57

gosuto

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answered Apr 15, 2020 at 14:07

Frank Fayia Kendemah

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Comments

Suraj Rao · Accepted Answer · 2022-08-08 04:38:30Z

-1

def count_letters(letter, strng):
   fruit = strng
   count = 0
   for char in fruit
      if char == letter:
         count = count + 1
         print(count)
         count_letters('a', 'banana')

edited Aug 8, 2022 at 4:38

Suraj Rao

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answered Aug 8, 2022 at 4:35

Sharad Saini

1

1 Comment

Suraj Rao Over a year ago

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