Formatting a time value

Question

In the following program I am returning a boolean value and a value representing the execution time in a tuple:

import time


# O(n) time
def isAnagram1(s1, s2):
    start = time.time()
    letterlist1 = [0] * 26
    letterlist2 = [0] * 26

    for i in xrange(0, len(s1)):
        pos = ord(s1[i]) - ord('a')
        letterlist1[pos] = letterlist1[pos] + 1

    for i in xrange(0, len(s2)):
        pos = ord(s2[i]) - ord('a')
        letterlist2[pos] = letterlist2[pos] + 1

    for i in xrange(0, 26):
        if letterlist1[i] != letterlist2[i]:
            end = time.time()
            return False, end-start

    end = time.time()
    return True, end-start
    pass


def main():
    str1 = input("Enter string 1: ")
    str2 = input("Enter string 2: ")

    print "Is Anagram1: %s, "
    "Operation required %10.7f seconds" % isAnagram1(str1, str2)

However, while invoking this function I am required to convert the time value into a floating point value in order to print it out appropriately. If not, it gives the error: TypeError: not all arguments converted during string formatting. I guess I have to find a way to get the single value representing the execution time converted.

Any help would be appreciated.

Instead, I am getting an error about `%b` being an unsupported format character. — Martijn Pieters, Jun 10 '15 at 20:18
This entire method could just be `def isAngram1(s1, s2): return collections.Counter(s1) == collections.Counter(s2)` — Cory Kramer, Jun 10 '15 at 20:20
Or `def isAnagram1(s1, s2): return sorted(s1) == sorted(s2)` — tobias_k, Jun 10 '15 at 20:22
@TessellatingHeckler No that will not work, it removes duplicates, which `a` is not an anagram of `aaa` — Cory Kramer, Jun 10 '15 at 20:23
Technically `collections.Counter` has O(n) complexity where as `sorted` is O(n log n). But for small (even for large values of short) strings, sorted will be much faster in Python. For long strings... timsort ends up being O(n) anway since there is only a finite number of distinct values. sorted strings are also hashable which is important if you are looking for anagrams in a big list of words — John La Rooy, Jun 10 '15 at 20:26
Thanks for the comments, folks. My current focus is not to find a way to compare two anagrams, but to determine if there is a way to convert a single tuple value among many while calling the function from elsewhere — Abhishek Tirkey, Jun 10 '15 at 20:27
@ÀbhìshékTìrkey since speed (execution time) is basically one of the most important things related to programming you probably should be interested in different ways to compare two strings — John Ruddell, Jun 10 '15 at 20:28
@JohnLaRooy There you go, I've edited the post to include the whole program. — Abhishek Tirkey, Jun 10 '15 at 20:44
Your `print` statement indicates you are using Python2. You should be using `raw_input` instead of the dangerous `input`! — John La Rooy, Jun 10 '15 at 20:54
Ok, I have changed my answer to match the new version of the question :) — John La Rooy, Jun 10 '15 at 20:59
@JohnLaRooy Thank you very much, sir! The missing "\" seemed to do the trick; I wonder why that didn't show up as a flake8 warning (I used max-complexity 10). Please excuse me, I'm relatively new to python actually... — Abhishek Tirkey, Jun 10 '15 at 21:39

John La Rooy · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-10T21:03:02.110

1

You are missing "\" for the line continuation. So you have a print statement which will just print the literal "Is Anagram1: %s, ". The next line is a separate expression that Python tries to evaluate.

Also you need to use raw_input since this is Python2

Here is the fixed main function

def main():
    str1 = raw_input("Enter string 1: ")
    str2 = raw_input("Enter string 2: ")

    print "Is Anagram1: %s, " \
    "Operation required %10.7f seconds" % isAnagram1(str1, str2)

edited Jun 10 '15 at 21:03

answered Jun 10 '15 at 20:20

John La Rooy

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Thanks, but I tried making the change and it still shows the same error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "", line 1, in main() File "/Volumes/Macintosh HD 2/Academic work/CST - 501 (Coding Assignments)/Coding/Problems/isAnagram.py", line 52, in main "Operation required %10.7f seconds" % isAnagram1(str1, str2) TypeError: not all arguments converted during string formatting – Abhishek Tirkey Jun 10 '15 at 20:29
@ÀbhìshékTìrkey you use one value in the formatting string and return a tuple of 2 values from `isAnagram1` – Peter Wood Jun 10 '15 at 20:33
@PeterWood How is that, since I'm using two format strings in the statement: print "Is Anagram1: %b, Operation required %10.7f seconds" % isAnagram1(str1, str2) – Abhishek Tirkey Jun 10 '15 at 20:37
@ÀbhìshékTìrkey `"Operation required %10.7f seconds"` only has one. – Peter Wood Jun 10 '15 at 21:11

Formatting a time value

1 Answers1