To answer your questions Steven What is the intention of this function? The name given doesn't mean anything to me. The parameters "names" and "step" don't seem meaningful.
I can see what the function does: it deletes bits of something, probably a list, in a convoluted way, eventually causing an error. But I can't tell what it is *supposed* to do. Given the example you show later on: survivor(["Andrew", "Brenda", "Craig", "Deidre", "Edward", "Felicity", "Greg", "Harriet"], 4) what should the result be? To answer your questions Steven What is the intention of this function? The name given doesn't mean anything to me. The parameters "names" and "step" don't seem meaningful. The intention of the programme is to remove every Nth person from a list. N (defined as steps) is inputted by the user. I can see what the function does: it deletes bits of something, probably a list, in a convoluted way, eventually causing an error. But I can't tell what it is *supposed* to do. Given the example you show later on: survivor(["Andrew", "Brenda", "Craig", "Deidre", "Edward", "Felicity", "Greg", "Harriet"], 4) what should the result be? In the example Survivor (["Andrew", "Brenda", "Craig", "Deidre", "Edward", "Felicity", "Greg", "Harriet"], 3) He answer should be ‘Greg’ > Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:02:01 +1100 > From: st...@pearwood.info > To: tutor@python.org > Subject: Re: [Tutor] IndexError: list index out of range > > John wrote: > > > > Hi all, > > > > I have wriiten the following code: > > [Segment] > > > >>>> def survivor(names, step): > > index = step - 1 > > next = names > > while len(next)> 1: > > next.remove (next[index]) > > > What is the intention of this function? The name given doesn't mean > anything to me. The parameters "names" and "step" don't seem meaningful. > > I can see what the function does: it deletes bits of something, probably > a list, in a convoluted way, eventually causing an error. But I can't > tell what it is *supposed* to do. > > > Given the example you show later on: > > survivor(["Andrew", "Brenda", "Craig", "Deidre", "Edward", > "Felicity", "Greg", "Harriet"], 4) > > > what should the result be? > > > > However when ever i run it i get this error message: > > > > Traceback (most recent call last): > > File "<pyshell#46>", line 1, in<module> > > survivor(["Andrew", "Brenda", "Craig", "Deidre", "Edward", > > "Felicity", "Greg", "Harriet"], 4) > > File "<pyshell#45>", line 5, in survivor > > next.remove (next[index]) > > IndexError: list index out of range > > > > Any ideas about whats causing this error? > > > You attempt to delete an item that doesn't exist. > > > > > -- > Steven > _______________________________________________ > Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org > To unsubscribe or change subscription options: > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
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