Homework 2

Due Tuesday 2-Feb, at 8pm


To start

  1. Create a folder named ‘hw2’
  2. Download hw2.py to that folder
  3. Edit hw2.py and modify the functions as required
  4. When you have completed and fully tested hw2, submit hw2.py to Gradescope. For this hw, you may submit up to 20 times (which is way more than you should require), but only your last submission counts.

Some important notes

  1. This homework is solo. You may not collaborate or discuss it with anyone outside of the course, and your options for discussing with other students currently taking the course are limited. See the academic honesty policy for more details.
  2. Do not use string indexing, loops, lists, list indexing, or recursion this week. The autograder will reject your submission entirely if you do.
  3. After you submit to Gradescope, make sure you check your score. If you aren’t sure how to do this, then ask a CA or Professor.
  4. There is no partial credit on Gradescope testcases. Your Gradescope score is your Gradescope score.
  5. Read the last bullet point again. Seriously, we won’t go back later and increase your Gradescope score for any reason. Even if you worked really hard and it was only a minor error…
  6. Do not hardcode the test cases in your solutions.
  7. The starter hw2.py file includes test functions to help you test on your own before you submit to Gradescope. When you run your file, problems will be tested in order. If you wish to temporarily bypass specific tests (say, because you have not yet completed some functions), you can comment out individual test function calls at the bottom of your file in main(). However, be sure to uncomment and test everything together before you submit! Ask a CA if you need help with this.
  8. Remember the course’s academic integrity policy. Solving the homework yourself is your best preparation for exams and quizzes; cheating or short-cutting your learning process in order to improve your homework score will actually hurt your course grade long-term.

Problems

  1. isEvenPositiveInt(n) [5 pts]
    Write the function isEvenPositiveInt(n) which, given a value n, returns True if it is even, positive, and an integer, and False otherwise.

  2. isPerfectSquare(n) [5 pts]
    Write the function isPerfectSquare(n) that takes a possibly-non-int value, and returns True if it is an int that is a perfect square (that is, if there exists an integer m such that m**2 == n), and False otherwise. Do not crash on non-ints nor on negative ints.

  3. nearestBusStop(street) [5 pts]
    Write the function nearestBusStop(street) that takes a non-negative int street number, and returns the nearest bus stop to the given street, where buses stop every 8th street, including street 0, and ties go to the lower street, so the nearest bus stop to 12th street is 8th street, and the nearest bus stop to 13 street is 16th street. The function returns an integer, so for example, nearestBusStop(5) returns 8.

  4. getKthDigit(n, k) [10 pts]
    Write the function getKthDigit(n, k) that takes a possibly-negative int n and a non-negative int k, and returns the kth digit of n, starting from 0, counting from the right. So:

    getKthDigit(789, 0) == 9 getKthDigit(789, 1) == 8 getKthDigit(789, 2) == 7 getKthDigit(789, 3) == 0 getKthDigit(-789, 0) == 9

  5. setKthDigit(n, k, d=0) [15 pts]
    Write the function setKthDigit(n, k, d=0) that takes three integers -- n, k, and d -- where n is a possibly-negative int, k is a non-negative int, and d is a non-negative single digit (between 0 and 9 inclusive) with a default value of 0. This function returns the number n with the kth digit replaced with d. Counting starts at 0 and goes right-to-left, so the 0th digit is the rightmost digit. For example:

    setKthDigit(468, 0, 1) == 461 setKthDigit(468, 1, 1) == 418 setKthDigit(468, 2, 1) == 168 setKthDigit(468, 3, 1) == 1468 setKthDigit(468, 1) == 408

  6. threeLinesArea(m1, b1, m2, b2, m3, b3) and helpers [30 pts]
    Write the function threeLinesArea(m1, b1, m2, b2, m3, b3) that takes six int or float values representing the 3 lines:

    y = m1*x + b1 y = m2*x + b2 y = m3*x + b3

    First find where each pair of lines intersects, then return the area of the triangle formed by connecting these three points of intersection. If no such triangle exists (if any two of the lines are parallel), return 0.

    To do this, you must write three helper functions:
    • lineIntersection(m1, b1, m2, b2) to find where two lines intersect (which you will call three times)
      • This function takes four int or float values representing two lines and returns the x value of the point of intersection of the two lines. If the lines are parallel, or identical, the function should return None.

    • distance(x1, y1, x2, y2) to find the distance between two points (again called three times)
      • This function takes four int or float values representing two points and returns the distance between those points.

    • triangleArea(s1, s2, s3) to find the area of a triangle given its side lengths (which you will call once).
      • This function takes three int or float values representing side lengths of a triangle, and returns the area of that triangle. To do this, you may wish to to use Heron's Formula.

    You may write other helper functions if you think they would be useful, but you must at least write these three exactly as described, and then you must use them appropriately in your solution. Once you have written and tested your helper functions, then move on to writing your threeLinesArea function, which of course should use your helper functions. That's the whole point of helper functions. They help!

    Note that helper functions help in several ways. First, they are logically simpler; they break down your logic into smaller chunks that are easier to reason over. Second, they are independently testable, so you can more easily isolate and fix bugs. And third, they are reusable, so you can use them as helper functions for other functions in the future. All good things!

  7. colorBlender(rgb1, rgb2, midpoints, n) [30 pts]
    This problem implements a color blender, inspired by this tool. In particular, we will use it with integer RGB values (it also does hex values and RGB% values, but we will not use those modes). Note that RGB values contain 3 integers, each between 0 and 255, representing the amount of red, green, and blue respectively in the given color, where 255 is "entirely on" and 0 is "entirely off".

    For example, consider this case. Here, we are combining crimson (rgb(220, 20, 60)) and mint (rgb(189, 252, 201)), using 3 midpoints, to produce this palette (using our own numbering convention for the colors, starting from 0, as the tool does not number them):

    color0: rgb(220, 20, 60) color1: rgb(212, 78, 95) color2: rgb(205, 136, 131) color3: rgb(197, 194, 166) color4: rgb(189, 252, 201)

    There are 5 colors in the palette because the first color is crimson, the last color is mint, and the middle 3 colors are equally spaced between them.

    So we could ask: if we start with crimson and go to mint, with 3 midpoints, what is color #1? The answer then would be rgb(212, 78, 95).

    One last step: we need to represent these RGB values as a single integer. To do that, we'll use the first 3 digits for red, the next 3 for green, the last 3 for blue, all in base 10 (decimal, as you are accustomed to). Hence, we'll represent crimson as the integer 220020060, and mint as the integer 189252201.

    With all that in mind, write the function colorBlender(rgb1, rgb2, midpoints, n), which takes two integers representing colors encoded as just described, a non-negative integer number of midpoints, and a non-negative integer n, and returns the nth color in the palette that the tool creates between those two colors with that many midpoints. If n is out of range (too small or too large), return None.

    For example, following the case above: colorBlender(220020060, 189252201, 3, 1) returns 212078095

    Hint: RGB values must be ints, not floats. When calculating midpoint colors, you can mostly use the built-in round function. However, the built-in round function has one major flaw: it varies in whether it chooses to round .5 up or down (ugh!). You can fix this by doing an extra check for whether a number is <number>.5 and choosing to always round up in that case.