Students will create brand new code in main to perform specific tasks.

Write a program that:

• Asks the user to input an 8 letter word. # Stores the input in a variable.
• Calculates the length of the word input.
• If the word is more than 8 characters, print ‘Too long’
• If the word is less than 8 characters, print ‘Too short’
• If the word is 8 characters, print ‘Perfect, thank you!’

Be able to read, comprehend, trace, adapt and create Python code using selection that:

• Uses len to count the number of characters in a string

The slides to accompany this section are here

The len() function returns the number of characters in a string. It takes the string as its parameter.

It’s one of the simplest built in functions so we will use it to introduce the skill.

Space is counted as a character, as is any punctuation.

This set of tasks will also introduce the concept of coding more efficiently by including the function in the print or selection condition. This can be applied to all of the subsequent functions (examples 3b & 4b), higher ability students will probably prefer this. If students struggle to conceptualise this then encourage them to call the function and return the result into a variable (examples 3a and 3b).

Example 1 – The function on its own

len("Banana")

Returns 6.

Example 2 – Storing the returned value in a variable

Returns the number 6 into the variable word_length

word_length = len("Banana")

Prints the data in the word_length variable

print(word_length)

Example 3a- Getting input and finding out its length

Gets input and stores it in the word variable

print("Enter a word")
word = input()

Returns the length of the string in the word variable into the variable

word_length
word_length = len(word)

Prints the data in the word_length variable

print(word_length)

Example 3b – A more efficient way of coding example 3a

Gets input and stores it in the word variable

print("Enter a word")
word = input()

Uses the len() function as part of the print() function. Removes the need for the word_length variable.

print(len(word))

Example 4a – len with selection

Gets input and stores it in the word variable

print("Enter a word")
word = input()

Returns the length of the string in the word variable into the variable word_length

word_length = len(word)

Prints a message if the string in word_length has more than 50 characters in it.

If word_length > 50:
	print("Wow, what a long word!")

**Example 4b – a more efficient way of coding **

Gets input and stores it in the word variable

print("Enter a word")
word = input()

Uses the len() function as part of the condition. Prints a message if the string in word_length has more than 50 characters in it.

if len(word) > 50:
	print("Wow, what a long word!")

Make sure that you check for the following things:

• len is lower case
• the length of the string has been assigned into a variable
• spaces are characters too!