How to stop programs printing out in alphabetical order

Question

So, I'm working on a program which converts input text into Discords regional_indicator emoticons but the issue is that if a word is entered such as "cab" the output will return as "abc". Is there any way of changing the program so that when words are entered, they aren't sorted into alphabetical order. (I've only programmed the first 3 letters for testing purposes. Coded in Python IDLE 3.5)

import sys
sentence = input("Enter a sentence:")
sentenceLower = sentence.lower()
sentenceList = list(sentenceLower)
sentenceListLength = len(sentenceList)
while sentenceListLength > 0:
    if "a" in sentence:
        sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_a:")
        sentenceListLength = sentenceListLength - 1
    if "b" in sentence:
        sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_b:")
        sentenceListLength = sentenceListLength - 1
    if "c" in sentence:
        sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_c:")
        sentenceListLength = sentenceListLength - 1

In short, the program receives a sentence, checks if letters appear in that sentence and then it prints out text to be copy and pasted into Discord.

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do, but I think you probably want to iterate over the characters in the sentence instead of looking for characters in the sentence. — , Dec 27 '17 at 02:51
This is a less efficient way of doing it than the least efficient way I could come up with in my head on short notice. — Mad Physicist, Dec 27 '17 at 03:47

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 27 '17 at 03:22

2

You need to loop through the characters in the sentence rather than looping through the number of characters.

for c in sentence:
    if c == "a":
       sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_a:")
    elif c == "b":
        sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_b:")
    elif c == "c":
        sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_c:")

What you are doing is just checking if there exists a character in the string, so it will give you the letters back out of order.

answered Dec 27 '17 at 03:22

TwoShorts

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I like how you answered the exact question but did not address the aesthetics and inefficiency of the multiple `if`. +1 – Mad Physicist Dec 27 '17 at 03:51
You did at least switch to `elif` though. – Mad Physicist Dec 27 '17 at 03:53
Thanks for the help, this was the issue. I feel kinda stupid for completely forgetting about elif statements xD – Richard Pope Dec 27 '17 at 12:34

sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio · Answer 2 · 2017-12-27T04:17:13.747

1

One way is

import sys
sentence = input("Enter a sentence:")
sentenceLower = sentence.lower()
sentenceListLength = len(sentenceLower)
for i in range(sentenceListLength) :
    c = sentenceLower[i]
    if ( ("a" <= c) and (c <= "z") ) :
        sys.stdout.write(":regional_indicator_"+c+":")
    else :
        # Do your stuff
        pass

You could as well traverse characters with

for c in sentenceLower :

instead of

for i in range(sentenceListLength) :
    c = sentenceLower[i]

(and it would be usually regarded as more pythonic). Using an integer index is sometimes more flexible/versatile (it is up to your case).

edited Dec 27 '17 at 04:17

answered Dec 27 '17 at 03:32

sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio

14,708
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Even when an index is needed, it is usually obtained through enumerate instead of a range. – Mad Physicist Dec 27 '17 at 03:49
@MadPhysicist - It's largely a matter of taste. Speed is also a (minor) issue, see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11901081/only-index-needed-enumerate-or-xrange and https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11990105/rangelenlist-or-enumeratelist, e.g. – sancho.s ReinstateMonicaCellio Dec 27 '17 at 04:15
Seems like enumerate is a tad faster than calling `__getitem__` every time. – Mad Physicist Dec 27 '17 at 05:29

How to stop programs printing out in alphabetical order

2 Answers2