Understanding - Advanced, exercise 34

Text

The variable my_family_name contains the string of a family name in lowercase with no spaces. What is the value returned by calling the function sstr as shown as follows: sstr(my_family_name).

def sstr(family_name):
    if len(family_name) > 1:
        m = len(family_name) // 2
        l_name = family_name[0:m]
        r_name = family_name[m:len(family_name)]
        return sstr(l_name) + sstr(r_name)
    
    r = -1
    v = "aeiou"
    for idx, c in enumerate(v):
        if family_name == c:
            r = idx
    
    return r

Hints

The function sstr is an recursive function that, at every call, reduce of an half the input parameter to use in the recursive step.

Additional material

The runnable Python file is available online. You can run it executing the command python exercise_34.py in a shell, and then following the instructions on screen to specify the intended input.