I wrote a flatten function that turns a nested list into one list
def flatten(lst, new=[]):
for i in lst:
if type(i)==list:
flatten(i)
else:
new+=[i]
return new
I tried using the same logic to make a function that adds up all positive numbers found in the nested list.
def posSum(lst, Sum=0):
for i in lst:
if type(i)==list:
posSum(i)
else:
if i > 0:
Sum+=i
return Sum
This returns 0. Why is it the "new" variable gets updated in flatten, but Sum doesn't get updated in posSum? I even put a print statement in my else clause to see if I could print out all the "i"s, which works. I tried putting a return for posSum instead of just calling it, but then it only calculates the sum for the first element since it breaks the loop. How can I get around this in one function, as opposed to me flattening the list, and then going through the new list?
