Palindrome

[Ulrich Schramme]

Andrew Dalke wrote:
> Ulrich Schramme:
> 
>>I´m not very experienced with Python but I think you could do it in a
>>more simple way.
> 
> 
> Looks good to me.  And it shows that I'm no longer able to help out
> beginning programmers since my solution is along the lines of
> 
> inp = raw_input('Enter a string: ')
> 
> punctuation = '%$!*.,-:? ;()\'\"\\'
> foldcase = [chr(i) for i in range(256)]
> for upper, lower in zip(string.ascii_uppercase, string.ascii_lowercase):
>                   foldcase[ord(upper)] = lower
> foldcase = "".join(foldcase)
> 
> t = inp.translate(foldcase, punctuation)
> if t != t[::-1]:
>       print '"' + inp + '" ' + 'is a palindrome.'
> else:
>      print '"' + inp + '" ' + 'is not a palindrome.'
> 
> Faster, but with a startup cost and a high learning curve.
> It's what I would use for my own code.
> 
> A slightly easier to understand and slower version is
> 
> inp = raw_input('Enter a string: ')
> punctuation = '%$!*.,-:? ;()\'\"\\'
> identity = "".join([chr(i) for i in range(256)])
> 
> t = inp.translate(identity, punctuation).lower()
> if t != t[::-1]:
>   ...
> 
> Yours is definitely easiest to understand so best for
> the OP.
> 
> Cheers,
>                     Andrew
>                     dalke at dalkescientific.com
> 
> 


Thanks Andrew,

there might be a million ways to solve the palindrome problem. I think 
that another good way would be the use of regular expressions. I´m a 
software developer by profession but quite new to Python. So I tried to 
find an easy way that fits my limited knowledge of the Python syntax.

My first impression of Python is that it is a well - designed and 
interesting language. I also like this newsgroup. People here seem to be 
more helpful than in some other groups I know...

Hopefully taking part in discussions here will improve my English as 
well as my Python :-)

-- 
-- Ulli
www.u-schramme.de