Converting numbers to words

[Brian Allen Vanderburg II]

todpose at hotmail.com wrote:
 >
 > I've been trying to figure this out for over 2 hours and I'm really 
frustrated right now.
 >
 > I first made Python to ask user to input height in meters. If user 
puts certain value in meter, then it converts it to feet and inches as 
follows:
 >  
 >
 > Enter the height (in metres): 1.6
 >
 > It is 5 feet, 3 inches high.
 >  
 >  
 > What I want to do is to make it type only words. For example, instead 
of its saying, "It is 5 feet, 3 inches high," I want it to say, "it is 
five feet, three inches high."
 > I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I made something similar in the past.  First I break it into two 
functions, one function handles 0-999 and return '' for zero or a 
meaningful value for 999, another function handles how many groups there 
are and for each one, gets the value for it calls the first function, 
and appends the correct word.  This only works for the English language 
though

Brian Vanderburg II

num_words1 = ("zero", # not used
             "one",
             "two",
             "three",
             "four",
             "five",
             "six",
             "seven",
             "eight",
             "nine",
             "ten",
             "eleven",
             "twelve",
             "thirteen",
             "fourteen",
             "fifteen",
             "sixteen",
             "seventeen",
             "eighteen",
             "nineteen")

num_words2 = ("twenty",
             "thirty",
             "forty",
             "fifty",
             "sixty",
             "seventy",
             "eighty",
             "ninety")

num_words3 = ("thousand",
             "million",
             "billion",
             "trillion",
             "quadrillion")

def word_func1(value):
   # value can be from 0 to 999
   result = ''

   if value == 0:
       return result

   # Handle hundreds
   if value >= 100:
       hvalue = int(value / 100)
       if result:
           result += ' '
       result += num_words1[hvalue]
       result += ' hundred'
       value -= (hvalue * 100)

   if value == 0:
       return result

   # Handle 1-19
   if value < 20:
       if result:
           result += ' '
       result += num_words1[value]
       return result

   # Handle 10s (20-90)
   tvalue = int(value / 10)
   if result:
       result += ' '
   result += num_words2[tvalue - 2]
   value -= (tvalue * 10)

   if value == 0:
       return result

   # Handle ones
   if result:
       result += ' '
   result += num_words1[value]

   return result

def word_func2(value):
   result = ''

   if value == 0:
       return 'zero'

   # Determine support values
   divider = 1
   l = len(num_words3)
   for i in range(l):
       divider *= 1000

   for i in range(l):
       if value >= divider:
           dvalue = int(value / divider)
           if result:
               result += ' '
           result += word_func1(dvalue)
           result += ' '
           result += num_words3[l - i - 1]
           value -= (dvalue * divider)
       divider /= 1000

   if value > 0:
       if result:
           result += ' '
       result += word_func1(value)

   return result

number_to_word = word_func2