Activity 2-2

February 28, 2013

Task 1: Review from Last Class

  1. On the Desktop, make a folder called ACT2-2. Download ACT2-2.py, poem.txt, and MobyDick.txt, and save them in the ACT2-2 directory.
  2. Open IDLE, and then open ACT2-2.py. Remind yourself of what the two functions actually do.
  3. In the ACT2-2 window, press F5 (or select Run > Run Module). What happens?
  4. In the IDLE interactive interpreter window, assign the list [-5,0,-2] to the variable myList. Use the avg3() function to compute the average.
  5. Use the addOne() function to add one to myList[2].
  6. The split function, without an input argument, splits a string on any whitespace (including spaces, newlines, tabs, etc.). Use the split() function to split the variable stringToSplit on different delimiters. Observe what happens when you enter the following expressions:
    • stringToSplit.split("\n")
    • stringToSplit.split("a")
    • stringToSplit.split("out")

Task 2: Count the Number of Words in the Shel Silverstein Poem

  1. In ACT2-2.py, write a function called readShel that opens the poem and returns a list of words. We have already written each line in class already — you just need to put them together.
  2. Now fill in the countWordsInShel() function.