Question

Copy-paste the given function header (with or without the docstring) into the answer window and then complete the body of the function. Then below, write the call expressions that match the given test cases, printing out the returned results of each call expression.

For full marks:

def centre_align(s: str) -> str:
    """ Returns a string that contains s "centred" and "highlighted"
        when it is displayed on a single line on a typical screen.
        Highlighting is to be done with the addition the
        SAME number of *'s before AND after the string itself. The number of
        stars should fill the line but not overfill it.
        (Look at the test cases to understand).
              
        The typical screen width is truly 80 characters wide
        but to make things easier on the exam, we will assume
        that the typical screen width is 20 characters wide.
      
        Assume that s is a valid string of length 1 to 20 characters
        You do not have to handle exceptional cases in this question.

        >>> centre_align('my title')
        '******my title******'
        >>> centre_align ('a')
        '*********a*********'
        >>> centre_align('012345678901234567890')
        '012345678901234567890'

• Proper indentation and syntax are required. (The editor does not allow TABs. Use 4-spaces instead)
• You may not use any conditional or loop statements

Answer 1

We get the length fo the string using the len() function. Then we get the total number of '*' to be padded by subtracting 20. We pad the string with stars and return the new string.

Code:

def centre_align(s):
    l = len(s)
    stars = 20 - l#total number of stars assuming the total length is 20
    #left and right stars are divided
    leftStar = int(stars/2)
    rightStar = int(stars/2)
    s = ('*' * leftStar) + s + ('*' * rightStar)

    return s


print(centre_align('my title'))
print(centre_align('a'))
print(centre_align('12345678901234567890'))

Code screenshot:

Output: