Border around string python

Question

Write a function spaced(s) that outputs spaces and a dashdot border around a string s.

The sample code, which calls spaced("Hello") would output:

  --.-.-.-.-
.            .
-   Hello    -
.            .
  -.-.-.-.-.

Please help me out with this :D. Im new to programming and im trying to learn this stuff. I dont have any programming experience so its quite a challenge to me. Thanks everyone!

Answer 1

the key to programming is looking for patterns, and then implementing them.

define your requirements:
• must have fixed-space fonts
• border at the top/bottom needs to be the length of text + margin (white space) + border
• text must have two spaces in all directions (vertical and horizontal)
• you want alternating periods and hyphens

def spaced(s):
    text = "hello"
    textLength = len(text)
    lineLength = textLength + 2 * (2 + 1)
    height = 5

    # at this point we know the first and fifth lines are the same and
    # we know the first and fourth are the same.  (reflected against the x-axis)

    hBorder = ""
    for c in range(lineLength):
        if c % 2:
            hBorder = hBorder + '.'
        else:
            hBorder = hBorder + '-'
    spacer = "." + " " * (lineLength - 2) + "."
    fancyText = "-  " + text + "  -"
    return (hBorder, spacer, fancyText, spacer, hBorder)

textTuple = spaced("hello world")
for line in textTuple:
    print line

Remember, you can only predict spacing for fixed width fonts. If you have any questions about the function above, ask in the comments. Cheers.