Greet Player - codepath/compsci_guides GitHub Wiki

TIP102 Unit 5 Session 1 Standard (Click for link to problem statements)

Problem Highlights

• 💡 Difficulty: Easy
• ⏰ Time to complete: 10-15 mins
• 🛠️ Topics: Classes, Object-Oriented Programming, Methods

1: U-nderstand

Understand what the interviewer is asking for by using test cases and questions about the problem.

• Established a set (2-3) of test cases to verify their own solution later.
• Established a set (1-2) of edge cases to verify their solution handles complexities.
• Have fully understood the problem and have no clarifying questions.
• Have you verified any Time/Space Constraints for this problem?

• What additional method should be added to the Villager class?

  • The greet_player method.

• What should the greet_player method return?

  • A string in the format: "{self.name}: Hey there, {player_name}! How's it going, {self.catchphrase}?"

• How do we create a new instance of the Villager class?

  • By calling the Villager constructor with the appropriate parameters for the new villager.

HAPPY CASE
Input: 
bones = Villager("Bones", "Dog", "yip yip")
print(bones.greet_player("Tram"))

Output: 
"Bones: Hey there, Tram! How's it going, yip yip?"

Explanation: 
The `Villager` object `bones` is instantiated correctly and the `greet_player` method returns the expected greeting.

EDGE CASE
Input: 
villager = Villager(", ", ")
print(villager.greet_player("))

Output: 
": Hey there, ! How's it going, ?"

Explanation: 
Even with empty string attributes, the `Villager` object should handle the method call without errors, though the output will be empty as per the input values.

2: M-atch

Match what this problem looks like to known categories of problems, e.g. Linked List or Dynamic Programming, and strategies or patterns in those categories.

For Object-Oriented Programming problems, we want to consider the following approaches:

• Define classes with appropriate attributes and methods.
• Use constructors to initialize object instances.
• Implement methods to perform specific actions with object attributes.

3: P-lan

Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.

General Idea: Define the greet_player method in the Villager class and create a new instance of Villager.

1) Define the `greet_player` method in the `Villager` class.
2) Implement the method to return a formatted greeting string.
3) Create a new instance of the `Villager` class for `bones`.
4) Call the `greet_player` method with a specific player's name.
5) Print the result of the method call.

⚠️ Common Mistakes

• Incorrectly formatting the greeting string.
• Not initializing the Villager object with the correct attributes.
• Forgetting to replace placeholder values with actual values.

4: I-mplement

Implement the code to solve the algorithm.

class Villager:
    def __init__(self, name, species, catchphrase):
        self.name = name
        self.species = species
        self.catchphrase = catchphrase
        self.furniture = []

    def greet_player(self, player_name):
        return f"{self.name}: Hey there, {player_name}! How's it going, {self.catchphrase}?"

# Create an instance of Villager for Bones
bones = Villager("Bones", "Dog", "yip yip")

# Call the greet_player method and print the result
player_name = "Tram" # Replace with your actual name
print(bones.greet_player(player_name))

5: R-eview

Review the code by running specific example(s) and recording values (watchlist) of your code's variables along the way.

• Instantiate the Villager object bones.
• Check the output of the greet_player method with the given player name.

6: E-valuate

Evaluate the performance of your algorithm and state any strong/weak or future potential work.

Assume N represents the number of attributes in the Villager class.

• Time Complexity: O(1) because calling a method and returning a string are constant-time operations.
• Space Complexity: O(1) for each Villager instance because it uses a fixed amount of memory for its attributes and methods.