[Tutor] Python Assignment Question

[Dwight Hutto]

On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 4:24 PM, Dwight Hutto <dwightdhutto at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:20 PM, Aija Thompson <aijathompson at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> I've been working on this question for a long time and for some reason it's
>> just not clicking.
>
> Algorithm is the appropriate approach. That's what makes it click.
>
>>
>> I'm not sure if my loop for the question is the right one, or if I'm even on
>> the right track.
>>
>> We're supposed to make a program that counts the number of days into the
>> year it is if you input a date. Not including leap years.
>
> We'll leave leap years alone for now then, but there are special years
> for that input which could be used as a count variable.
>
>>
>> This is what I have so far:
>>
>> months = 'January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August,
>> September, October, November, December'
>> daysPerMonth = '31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31'
>>
>> #shorterMonths = 'February, April, June, September, Novmeber'
>> #longerMonths = 'January, March, May, July, August, October, December'
>
> I'd suggest using a dictionary with the month as the
> identifier(month_dict = {'january' : 31, 'february': [28,29]}, and an
> integer as the value for each static count of months.
>
>>
>> month = raw_input('Enter the month: ')
>> day = raw_input('Enter the day: ')
>>
>> for x in month:
>>         whichMonth = months.index(x)
>>         monthNumber = daysPerMonth[whichMonth]
>>         dayYear.append(monthNumber)
>>
>> I was hoping to make a loop that would check which month it is and compare
>> it to the second list I made with the number of days in that month. I don't
>> know if I've made that clear to the program or not. Either way, I feel
>> pretty lost at the moment.
>>
>> Any help would do!
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>
> But in the end, you just want to count days.
> So you could iterate through the dictionary's values_of days in each
> month, up until the month and the date matches(loop stops), while
> using a day_count += 1 in the loop.
>

Or just count each month's days in the loop, and then when you hit the
month, add the days to the adding of the previous months, which just
would increment based on the dictionary's value, instead of a 1 count
loop, you get an addition of the months prior to the date, plus how
many days into the current month you want to find how many days into
the year you are.

For leap year just use a standard year, and if that year jn the input,
or every 4 years past that, add in 1 day.

> Just check for the value of the month, and the number of the day to
> stop the loop count.
>
> --
> Best Regards,
> David Hutto
> CEO: http://www.hitwebdevelopment.com