On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 5:27 AM, bob gailer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Arun Srinivasan wrote: > > I'm trying to learn Python, and I decided to try kata 2 </> from the > > CodeKate website. It's basically just a challenge to implement a > > binary search in different ways. > > > > I wrote an implementation that works, but I'm confused as to why. > > > > def chop(search_int, sorted_list): > > if len(sorted_list) == 1 or 2: > Yet another way to express that is: > > if 1 <= len(sorted_list) <= 2: > > > for x in sorted_list: > > if x == search_int: > > return sorted_list.index(x) > > return -1 > > > > midpoint = (len(sorted_list) - 1) / 2 > > mp_value = sorted_list[midpoint] > > > > if mp_value == search_int: > > return midpoint > > elif mp_value > search_int: > > return chop(search_int, sorted_list[:midpoint]) > > else: > > return chop(search_int, sorted_list[midpoint + 1:]) > > > > Basically, it only returns the index if it matches in the if statement > > at the beginning of the function, but since that is limited to lists > > of length 2 or 1, why doesn't it return only 0 or 1 as the index? I > > think there is something about recursion here that I'm not fully > > comprehending. > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org > > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor > > > > > -- > Bob Gailer > 919-636-4239 Chapel Hill, NC > >
Oy, I should have seen that. Thanks for the responses - time to go back and fix this. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
