Print Hand - codepath/compsci_guides GitHub Wiki

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

U-nderstand

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

• What is the format for representing a card in the list? Should it be the card object or a string representation of the card?
  • The problem solution uses the card object itself, but typically, a string representation could be used for clearer output.

P-lan

Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.

General Idea: Traverse the linked list of cards starting from a given card, collecting all cards until no more cards are linked (i.e., next is None).

1) Start with the provided `starting_card`.
2) Initialize an empty list `cards` to hold the cards encountered.
3) Use a while loop to traverse the linked cards:
  a) Append the current card to the `cards` list.
  b) Move to the next card by updating `current` to `current.next`.
4) Continue until `current` is `None` (indicating the end of the hand).
5) Return the list `cards`.

⚠️ Common Mistakes

• Forgetting to update the current card to the next in the loop, which would cause an infinite loop.

I-mplement

def print_deck(starting_card):
    cards = []
    current = starting_card
    while current:
        cards.append(current)
        current = current.next
    return cards