Compsci 101, Fall 2012, Totem Howto

In this howto there's a discussion about getting started, Totem standards you must adhere to, raw strings, and random/if.

Getting Started

Create a new Pydev project. You can call the project by any name, but we suggest compsci101-totem to help you identify the project in your workspace. You must create a Python module named Totem.py and write functions in that module. The code you write must conform to the totem standards below. When you create the module, let Eclipse create the __name__ == '__main__' boilerplate for you.

Totem Standards

  1. Each function that you write to draw a part of a totem should have one of the following labels as the first part of the function name. Every function you write should begin with one of these strings. Please do not write helper functions that these call, even if such functions would make it simpler for you to write these functions. Please do not write nested/inner functions either. Each function you write should start with one of the labels below, then have an underscore character, then some "meaningful" description of the function.

    For example function names can be chin_cleft, hair_bald, mouth_open, or mouth_v1. You cannot use a name like mouth or earClogged because these don't conform to the naming specification. The "meaningful" description can be anything.

  2. Each function must return a string that is seventeen characters "wide". The string can be a mult-line string, where each line is fifteen characters in length. e.g., you can write the function hair_part below: def hair_part(): a1 = r"12345678901234567" a2 = r"|||||||||||||||||" a3 = r"\\\\\\\\|||||||||" return a2 + "\n" + a3 To be more precise, the string returned by each of these functions must have length 17*k + (k-1) where k is the number of lines represented by the string. A one-line string will be exactly 17-characters, a two-line string will be two lines of 17 separated by one new line character so it's length will be 35 = 17*2 + (2-1) characters

    Some of the characters in each line can be spaces, but each must have length seventeen as a string (again, multi-line strings are fine).

  3. Each of the functions whose name is based on one of the parts above must return a string. You can write functions that don't return strings, but instead print the strings that make up a totem-pole. One of these functions should be named totem and another should be named randompole. The first will print the same totem-pole each time it is called. The totem-pole must consist of at least three different "heads". You can also write functions to create individual heads that print the values returned by the so-called parts functions.

    The function, randompole, should create different poles each time it is called based on using the Python random module and using if/elif statements.

  4. According to the instructions in the assignment, you must have one function named totem that results in generating three totem heads.

  5. You should use the main Python idiom we've seen to run either totem or randompole when the program is run, e.g., from Eclipse: if __name__ == "__main__": randompole() However you should test your totem function as well, not just the randompole function.

Creating and Printing Strings

All strings you return and print should use what Python calls "raw" Strings. Strings preceded by a letter r before the double quote that begins the string will result in the string being printed without the need for any escape backslashes. For example: print "\" generates an error in Python because the second quote " has been escaped, however print "\\" will print one backslash. To avoid the need to line things up when backslashes are escaped, use raw strings as shown in the example below. print r"| \\// |" print r"| --- |" the letter 'r' before the string means that whatever follows the 'r' will be printed exactly as shown, no characters will be interpreted as escape characters or in any other way, they'll simply be printed. You can combine raw strings with other characters by concatenting them in one line as shown below for the function hairParted that conforms to the totem standards. 
    def hairParted():
        return " "*7 + r"\\\\\\\\//"
Note that 7 spaces are concatenated to 10 characters in a raw string.

Random if/else

To use random numbers you must import the random library and then call the function random.random(low,high). The example below returns three different strings with equal probability. def random_chin(): choice = random.random(1,3) if choice == 1: return chin_cleft() elif choice == 2: return chin_beard() else: return chin_pointy()