Question

Question
1. When I run the code (http://codepad.org/kAADoUks), I get an error that 1 argument is missing for the line 129.
“question, answer = convert(snippet, phrase)”

I checked the code umpteen times, but I don’t know how to fix it.
What am doing wrong?

1. How does Python know that the code can accept more than 2 arguments on the commandline

2. Is convert(snippet, phrase) a pre-defined Python function?

3. What are these signs “###”, “*“? How are they called in Python?
   are they placeholders?
   

4. “snippet” is not declared in the code as the population/list WORDS.
   How does Python interpreter know that “snippet” refers to the list WORDS?
   Is “snippet” a special Python built-in element?

5. “for i in range(0, snippet.count(“@@@”)):” (line 75)
   There are no “###”, ““, “@@@” signs in the URl FILE:
   How is Python interpreter able to count the number of “###” or “” when there are none in the source file?

6. How does the code in line 85 work?
   “for sentence in snippet, phrase:”
   Is “sentence” looping through 2 different list?
   I don’t see anywhere in the code that “snippet” and “phrase” are defined as lists.

7. The variables “question” and “answer” have the same values. What is the purpose of the if-clause in line 135?

Answer 1

Learn code the hard way.

Isn’t it all in the name already?

to answer some of your questions in the spirit of good will:

1. python doesn’t know, the code in question should and sort of does
   check number of arguments

2. no, convert is not a pre-defined function in Python

3. “#” is a number sign, also called hash key, they are used for
   comments in Python, but in this case they are just part of string
   data, I suppose it’s your homework to fill in these.

4. snippet is not any special name in Python

5. your job to figure out I suppose

6. code on line 85 loops through only 2 items, snippet and phrase, code
   like for i in x, y: foo(i) is just shorthand for foo(x); foo(y).
   you are correct that in this case it’s kindof bogus. I suppose it’s
   your homework to correct this code so that it actually does
   something useful. it’s called learn code the hard way for a reason,
   right?

7. huh? 135 or 137?

8. the exception that you did not ask about, most likely it was a
   temporary network error, I don’t get exception like that.