A Quick Note on Python
I saw an amusing Python tutorial.
I have been meaning to learn Python for a while now. While searching for other things, I came across an amusingly titled video on YouTube, Python Programming: Learn Python in One Video, by Derek Banas.
I had no illusions it was going to cover the language in any depth. Still, it is only about 45 minutes long, so I decided to take a look. It actually hit a lot of highlights and was a nice overview of the language.
For example, it introduces the built-in operators and data types. It goes over the for and while loops. It also covers several other programming concepts. If you’ve never seen Python before, this video is worth a look.
I recently picked up a copy of Steven Skiena’s “Programming Challenges” and started going through the problems. To see if I learned anything from the video, I tried coding the first puzzle, the 3n+1 problem. The link is to the puzzle on the UVa Online Judge, where one can submit code in C, C++, Java or Pascal. Sadly, they don’t support Python. Nevertheless, here’s my version in Python:
import sys
# Execute: "python p100.py < data" where 'data' is the input file, two integers per line.
def cycle_length(n):
result = 1
while (n != 1):
if (n % 2):
# n is odd, so multiply by 3 and add 1
n = 3 * n + 1
else:
# n is even, so divide by 2
n /= 2
result += 1
return result
# Each line of input consists of two integers
def main():
for line in sys.stdin:
input_list = line.split()
input_list = list(map(int, input_list))
# reset the max cycle length for each line of input
max_cycle_length = 0
# Make a copy of the original list for output
original_list = list(input_list)
if input_list[0] > input_list[1]:
x = input_list[0]
input_list[0] = input_list[1]
input_list[1] = x
for n in range(input_list[0], input_list[1]+1):
length = cycle_length(n)
if length > max_cycle_length:
max_cycle_length = length
print("%d %d %d" % (original_list[0], original_list[1], max_cycle_length))
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
I think the only thing here that wasn’t covered in the video is reading from stdin.