1.4 Correcting errors • 11 min read

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Description

Practice with identifying and correcting code blocks

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College Board Big Idea 1

Identifying and Correcting Errors (Unit 1.4)

Become familiar with types of errors and strategies for fixing them

  • Review CollegeBoard videos and take notes on blog
  • Complete assigned MCQ questions if applicable

Code Segments

Practice fixing the following code segments!

Segment 1: Alphabet List

Intended behavior: create a list of characters from the string contained in the variable alphabet

Code:

%%js

var alphabet = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
var alphabetList = [];

for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
    alphabetList.push(alphabet[i]);
}

console.log(alphabetList);

<IPython.core.display.Javascript object>

What I Changed

What I Changed I changed… In the corrected code, the ‘i’ variable is being used to index the ‘alphabet’ strong and push the corresponding letters into the list which will give the first 10 letters

Segment 2: Numbered Alphabet

Intended behavior: print the number of a given alphabet letter within the alphabet. For example:

"_" is letter number _ in the alphabet

Where the underscores (_) are replaced with the letter and the position of that letter within the alphabet (e.g. a=1, b=2, etc.)

Code:

%%js

// Create an array of alphabet letters
const alphabetList = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";

// Specify the letter you want to find the number of
const letterToFind = "e";

// Find the index of the letter in the alphabet list
const letterNumber = alphabetList.indexOf(letterToFind) + 1;

// Check if the letter exists in the alphabet
if (letterNumber > 0) {
  console.log(`"${letterToFind}" is letter number ${letterNumber} in the alphabet`);
} else {
  console.log(`"${letterToFind}" is not found in the alphabet`);
}


<IPython.core.display.Javascript object>

What I Changed

I changed… I chatGPT to rewrite the code

Segment 3: Odd Numbers

Intended behavior: print a list of all the odd numbers below 10

Code:

%%js

let odds = [];

for (let i = 1; i < 10; i += 2) {
  odds.push(i);
}

console.log(odds);

<IPython.core.display.Javascript object>

What I Changed

What I Changed I changed… I renamed the varaible ‘evens’ to ‘odds’ to show a collection of odd numbers. Started the loop with a varaible so it could start with the first odd number

BELOW NOT EDITED

The intended outcome is printing a number between 1 and 100 once, if it is a multiple of 2 or 5

  • What values are outputted incorrectly. Why?
  • Make changes to get the intended outcome.
%%js

var numbers = [];
var newNumbers = [];

for (var i = 1; i <= 100; i++) {
    if (i % 2 === 0 || i % 5 === 0) {
        newNumbers.push(i);
    }
}

console.log(newNumbers);


<IPython.core.display.Javascript object>

What I Changed I changed… Added a ‘for’ loop to iterate from 1 to 100 and added statemnets to make sure the number is divisible by 2 or 5. This is then pushed into an array whcihc contains the numbers.

Challenge

This code segment is at a very early stage of implementation.

  • What are some ways to (user) error proof this code?
  • The code should be able to calculate the cost of the meal of the user

Hint:

  • write a “single” test describing an expectation of the program of the program
  • test - input burger, expect output of burger price
  • run the test, which should fail because the program lacks that feature
  • write “just enough” code, the simplest possible, to make the test pass

Then repeat this process until you get program working like you want it to work.

%%js

var menu =  {"burger": 3.99,
         "fries": 1.99,
         "drink": 0.99}
var total = 0

//shows the user the menu and prompts them to select an item
console.log("Menu")
for (var item in menu) {
    console.log(item + "  $" + menu[item].toFixed(2)) //why is toFixed used?
}
//ideally the code should support mutliple items
var item = "burger"

//code should add the price of the menu items selected by the user 
console.log(total)

<IPython.core.display.Javascript object>

Hacks

  • Fix the errors in the first three segments in this notebook and say what you changed in the code cell under “What I Changed” (Challenge is optional)