I've created a python program that makes a vector. Now i want to set an item using a function__setitem__
and__getitem__
. So for example, ifvector = Vec()
andvector[3] = 26
would change an empty vector to[0, 0, 0, 26]
. I need to override the__getitem__
and__setitem__
I've listed the code below, but i'm having troubles with the get and set functions. Any advice?
class Vec:
def __init__(self, length = 0):
self.vector = [0]*length
def __str__(self):
return '[{}]'.format(', '.join(str(i) for i in self.vector))
#This formats the output according to the homework.
#Adds '[' and ']' and commas between each 0
def __len__(self):
return len(self.vector)
def extend(self, newLen):
self.vector.append([0]*newLen)
return (', '.join(str(j) for j in self.vector))
def __setitem__(self, key, item):
self.vector[key] = item
def __getitem__(self, key):
return self.vector[key]
You have several problems:
extend
is appending essentially a new vector to the end of the original, rather than increasing the length of the original. It's not clear that it needs to return a string representation of the modified vector (unless it's just for debugging purposes).
def extend(self, newlength):
# Assume newlength is greater than the old
self.vector.extend([0] * (newlength - len(self)))
__setitem__
needs to call extend
if the key is too large.
def __setitem__(self, key, item):
if key >= len(self):
self.vector.extend(key+1)
self.vector[key] = item
__getitem__
needs to access the underlying list, not use an undefined attribute
def __getitem__(self, key):
# It's probably better to catch any IndexError to at least provide
# a class-specific exception
return self.vector[key]
The problem is the vector you created has no length because of the default value given the length
keyword argument in the __init__()
method definition. Try this:
vector = Vec(4)
vector[3] = 26
print vector # --> [0, 0, 0, 26]
You need to adapt your __getitem__
and __setitem__
to delegate to the underlying list:
def __setitem__(self, key, item):
self.vector[key] = item
# return doesn't make sense here
def __getitem__(self, key):
# not sure what self.__key is ? Let's return value from index in `self.vector` instead
return self.vector[key]
It would be easier in __str__
if you do this
return str(self.vector)