Python programming beginner difficulties

Question

I am trying to write a program in Python, but I am stuck in this piece of code:

def function():
    a=[3,4,5,2,4]
    b=1
    c=0
    for x in range(5):  
        if a[x-1]>b:
            c=c+1
        return c


print(function())

It gives me value 1 instead of 5. Actually the function I am trying to write is a little bit more complicated, but the problem is actually the same, it doesn't give me the right result.

def result():
    r=[0]*len(y)
    a=2
    b=an_integer
    while b>0:
         for x in range(len(y)) :
             if y[x-1] > 1/a and b>0:
                r[x-1]=r[x-1]+1
                b=b-1
                a=a+1

    return r

    print(result())

v is a list of values smaller than 1 and b has an integer as value. If some values x in v are bigger than 1/a then the values x in r should get 1 bigger, then it should repeat a=a+1 until b becomes 0. I want this function to give a result of the type for ex. [7,6,5,4,3] where the sum of the elements in this list is equal to b.
Sometimes it gives me the right value, sometimes not and when the elements in v are equal for example v=[0.33333,0.33333,0.33333] it gets stuck and doesn't give me a result.

I don't know what I am doing wrong !

Answer 1

Your return statements are incorrectly indented. You want to return after the loop ends, not inside the loop.

def function():
    a = [3, 4, 5, 2, 4]
    b = 1
    c = 0
    for x in range(5):  
        if a[x-1] > b:
            c = c + 1
    return c

Also, a couple of optimizations to the code:

def function(a, b):
    c = 0
    for x in a:
      if x > b:
         c += 1
    return c

or further:

def function(a, b):
    return sum(x > b for x in a)