Homework 4 Download

Please click the link at the top of the page to download.

Do the problems in hw04.py. The assignment is self graded. To test yourself, run the following on the command line:

$ python3 -m doctest hw04.py -v

If you passed the tests, you should see the following:

3 items passed all tests:
   3 tests in hw04.absval
   2 tests in hw04.hailstone
   3 tests in hw04.largest_factor
8 tests in 4 items.
8 passed and 0 failed.
Test passed.

If any tests fail, information about what exactly failed will be displayed. To fix your problem, try testing things out in the interpreter!

If you experience any issues with grading, first make sure you are in the correct folder. You may have to use cd to change directories, and use ls to make sure the file is there.

Instructions for Hailstone

Credit to CS 61A Spring 2018

Douglas Hofstadter’s Pulitzer-prize-winning book, Gödel, Escher, Bach, poses the following mathematical puzzle.

• Pick a positive integer n as the start.
• If n is even, divide it by 2.
• If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1.
• Continue this process until n is 1.

The number n will travel up and down but eventually end at 1 (at least for all numbers that have ever been tried – nobody has ever proved that the sequence will terminate). Analogously, a hailstone travels up and down in the atmosphere before eventually landing on earth.

This sequence of values of n is often called a Hailstone sequence, Write a function that takes a single argument with formal parameter name n, prints out the hailstone sequence starting at n, and returns the number of steps in the sequence.