Hi,
I am trying to do something which is really stupid :-)
I would like to count the number of occurrences of a certain character
in a list.
This is more of an exercise in recursion rather than the underlying problem.
I could have used a *for* loop or simply the list *count* method.
Here is the code:
class Find_Ex():
count = 0
def slais(self, lst, x):
if len(lst) == 0: #if list is empty just give a -1
return -1
elif lst[0] == x:
Find_Ex.count += 1 # we have found 'x', increment class
attribute 'count' by 1
Find_Ex.slais(self,lst[1:], x)# slice the list and go to
the next element
else:
Find_Ex.slais(self,lst[1:], x)#'x' not found so we move to
the next element
return Find_Ex.count
s = Find_Ex()
lst = [4,4,4,5,6,7,4,7,7,4]
x = 4
print "There are %d occurrences of %d"%(s.slais(lst, x),x)
It works as advertised but I am convincing myself that it should not! :-)
If the list is empty, which is the base case, s.slais([], 4) returns -1.
Now using some bush logic, in a non-empty list, in order for the
recursion to terminate it has to 'hit' the base case and return -1.
Where does this -1 go ? Further, why do not I get a *TypeError* when I
use a simple *return* statement in the *if* clause?
The reason I am asking that is that I think(wrongly, of course :-)) it
should be part of the answer and therefore I should be getting an answer
that is off by one or a *TypeError*!!
And by the way, the reason I used a *class* was that I could not get a
suitable place in the program to initialise my *count* variable otherwise.
Thanks...
--
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