Forem: Vuyisile Lucas Ncipha

Find Factors of A number

Vuyisile Lucas Ncipha — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 23:14:45 +0000

In this post I am going to share with you guys how to find the factors of a number using python.

This may help a lot of you with the for loops on action.

So what we are going to create is a function that will take a number that we want to find its factors as a parameter and then return all the factors as a list.

E.g:

   factors = factors_of(10)
   print(factors)

Results:

   [1,2,5,10]

Let us get into this function.

Step 1: Define a function

Is very important to give your function an meaningful name.

   def factors_of(number):

The reason I chose factors_of is because it gives saves you time and energy to put a comment. Using meaningful name can save you from writing a comment to explain what does a function does.

Step 2: Create a temporary list

This list is the one that is going to be returned carrying all the factors.

   temp = list()

Sorry I migrated to python from c#, so I am used to instantiating a data type hence I said temp = list() instead of temp =[]. But I think for memory cache purposes, list() is better than [] just append is better than +=. If I am wrong with this please feel free to comment.

Step 3: Create A loop from 1 to the number

This loop must with the number we are looking it's factors. We are going to use the built-in function *range(seed,max-1,step)

   for i in range(1,number+1):

Plus 1 because we want the number itself to be included because according to the formula of a range, the number is excluded.

Step 4: Use a condition with % operator

For us to find if a number is a factor we must find a remainder of 0 if we devide with it. Lucky we will just % to find remainder. Then we append the number to the list

   #line for the loop
       if number%i==0:
           temp.append(i)

Then lets return the list.

Code is full:

   def factors_of(number):
       temp = list() 
       for i in range(1,number+1):
           if number%i==0:
               temp.append(i)
       return temp

So if we go back to our example but with a different number let's check the results

   factors = factors_of(20)
   print(factors)

Results:

   [1,2,4 5,10,20]

I hope you enjoyed the post and it was helpful for you. Cheers

Convert Specific String to Binary.

Vuyisile Lucas Ncipha — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 13:09:07 +0000

Many people they tend to forget the basics of converting things from a specific data types to another data type like converting from integer to Binary or characters to Binary.

Is important to use Convertions especially when dealing with AI and ML.

Eg:

   a = 8
   binary_form = format(int(a), 'b')
   print(str(binary_form), end='')

Result:

The built-in function format() is used to format string using a controlled by specifier. If want to learn more about this go to:https://www.programiz.com/python-programming/methods/built-in/format

The syntax is:

    format(value, spec='')

Now we have dealt with converting integer to Binary.

But now we are going to deal with converting characters to Binary this will help with Creating chatbot using binary algorithm I am about to drop soon.

Let's say we have a sentence 'hello world' and want to convert it Binary so our bot can find a perfect response that is smart.

Text: hello world

Step 1: convert the phrase to a list of individual characters

   hello_world = 'hello world'
   char_list = [x for x in hello_world]
   #There are many ways to do this but
   #you can use any ways. 
   #I believe this is not the best
   #way to convert to character list
   print(char_list)

Results:

   ['h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o', ' ', 'w', 'o', 'r', 'l', 'd']

Step 2: Convert each character to an integer using built-in function ord()

   #Create a temporary list to store 
   #integers
   temp = list()

   #now loop in the list of chars
   for character in char_list:
       temp.append(ord(character))

   print(temp)

Results:

 [104, 101, 108, 108, 111, 32, 119, 111, 114, 108, 100]

Step 3: Convert each element in to binary

   #we need a second temp list
   #lets call it temp2
   temp2 = list()
   for digit in temp:
       bin_format = format(digit, 'b')
       temp2.append(bin_format)
   print(temp2)

Result:

['1101000', '1100101', '1101100', '1101100', '1101111', '100000', '1110111', '1101111', '1110010', '1101100', '1100100']

I shared this post to understand the process behind convert character to Binary. I know this may not be the best solution but it got the job done. Now is up to you to find yourself the best solution